


Underneath

by Ataraxetta



Series: Sanity is Overrated [2]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Bad coping mechanisms, Canonical Child Abuse, Domestic Disputes, Explicit Sexual Content, Felching, First Time, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Oral Sex, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rimming, Romance, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-06 17:27:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 37,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4230558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ataraxetta/pseuds/Ataraxetta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Of course, a refusal to apologise and a handjob on the floor of a fitting room does not reparations make.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Eggsy left the shop that night with a new chip on the shoulder of his new suit. Harry left the shop that night with the knowledge of what Eggsy looked like flushed and trembling with pleasure under his hands and the certainty that this single torturous taste of what he wanted most was worth living with the possibility that he would not get another.</em>
</p><p>(Everyone has PTSD and makes bad decisions.)</p><p>Sequel to The Green</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This asshole fic has been the bane of my existence since March and has tapped out at a little over 37k. It's technically a sequel to [The Green](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3484652), but that story still works as a stand alone without this one.
> 
> I made a post on tumblr sometime in March that I was going to write a fic with Victoria from the RED movies as Guinevere, and this happened.
> 
> Thank you to [DivineProjectZero](http://archiveofourown.org/users/divineprojectzero), who listened to me whine for months, and to [Schuyler](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Schuyler/pseuds/Schuyler), who has gone through it fixing stuff almost as much as I have, and to [lazy_daze](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lazy_daze/pseuds/lazy_daze), who did an incredible Brit-Pick (and meanly refused to let me allow Eggsy to use the term "bag of dicks" - also I must point out that I added a metric ton after she finished, so any further Americanisms/horrific attempts at British are all mine, and please do point them out!). And finally thank you to [eleadore](http://archiveofourown.org/users/eleadore), who does not even go here but betaed the hell out of this for me, because she's the best.
> 
> I hope you enjoy! Feedback/concrit/kudos are loved and cherished.

_part i_

**JULY**

Harry woke up.

 

 

There were four main departments within the Kingsman organisation, each globally functional and managed from England, with several lines of business falling under their heading. The Round Table employed the full-status knights as well as the several hundred reconnaissance, extraction, and cleanup agents. The Crystal Cave was responsible for technology, surveillance, and handling of agents in the field and, as such, was also heavily involved in recruitment and training. Avalon employees were highly trained in communications and public relations, and acted as liaisons between the organisation and government parties throughout the world, and Camelot housed finance, human resources and internal affairs.

Each department chair — Arthur, Merlin, Bedivere, and Ector, respectively — answered to a chief executive, codename Guinevere.

Her real name was Victoria, and her ties to Kingsman were absolute. She had technically been head of the organisation for twenty-five years, but by her own choice she had remained on the outskirts for quite some time as director and investor, rather than active management, as her preferred work existed outside Kingsman's guidelines. Nonetheless, with the societal upheaval left in the wake of Richmond Valentine and Chester King's death, she had returned to London, the abdicated heir forced to resume the throne.

Ad hoc executive leadership meetings took place in one of eight confidential locations. Harry had never been privy to the details, and now only knew of the one in which he'd just entered, a one bedroom flat above a cigar shop in New Zealand, old but well kept and packed with several million pounds worth of security features. Harry had received the flat address from Merlin, and it was he who arrived next.

Harry had spoken to him in the week since he had regained consciousness, but it was the first time he'd seen him since he'd left for Kentucky, which depending on Harry's mood felt like endless years or only just days ago. He'd known that he was by no means in a stable state of mind and that the muted, distant numbness would eventually wear off, but he hadn't expected it to be quite so sharp when it did. The rush of emotion he felt at the sight of his oldest friend was painful. Merlin, pale and exhausted, gave Harry an unsubtle once over.

"You look like shite," he said, and pulled Harry into a tight embrace. It gave Harry a shock until he remembered that Merlin had watched him get shot in the head. He patted Merlin's back.

"You look worse than I do," he said once they parted, squeezing Merlin's shoulder. 

Merlin snorted, leading the way to a large solid oak table in the main room, where they sat down across from one another. "It's been an eventful few weeks. How are you feeling?"

Harry cleared his throat, trying to formulate an answer that wasn't a complete lie. "Confused, mostly."

"To be expected," Merlin said. He turned Harry's attention to the large and impeccable copy of a Renoir painting on the back wall, and then handed Harry a pair of Kingsman issue glasses identical to the ones that he had lost so that he could see Merlin's tablet display on top of it. "We have an hour before the others are due to arrive. I thought I might catch you up."

And so he did. Harry had been in an induced coma for sixteen days, but in the eight since he'd awoken he'd had time to catch up on the civilian version of what had happened since he'd died. In the wake of a terrorist attack that had wiped out nearly two-thirds of the world's leaders and a devastating four per cent of the population, things had gone to shit in a spectacular way.

Merlin gave him the view from behind the curtain, which was worse in some ways and hopeful in others. Mankind did have a way of carrying on.

As for Kingsman, seven knights in America, one in Mexico and three in Brazil had lost their lives in the melee, and around three hundred less specialised field agents around the world. Recruitment efforts were already in process. Of the English knights, most had managed to sequester themselves upon receipt of the encrypted warning Merlin had sent out. The two who had been unable to - Gareth and Kay - had been seriously injured but escaped with their lives. They were still in recovery at headquarters. Every able-bodied agent was aiding in cleanup and prevention efforts.

The organisation had not been entirely clean, but it said something that the late Arthur had been the only member knight status or above who had accepted Valentine's chip.

Judging by the sardonic tone of his voice, Merlin was stung by the betrayal. Harry supposed he should have been as well. Chester King had, after all, recruited him. He had been a mentor, inspiration, and friend for many years, but Harry couldn't find it in himself to grieve for his death and he felt only slight affront that the man had led him to Valentine like a lamb to slaughter.

Though the desire to be as informed as possible had him asking as many questions as he could think of, on the whole he felt very little regarding any of the things Merlin told him at all. The state of the world, and of Kingsman, and of any number of concerns that used to matter a great deal to him did not, at the moment, interest him in the slightest. Horror at the deplorable crimes he'd committed in South Glade Mission Church aside, his mind was singularly focused. 

He knew that Eggsy had lived through V-Day, had watched the footage of all that had happened in Valentine's mountain bunker and had felt an immense and undeserving swell of pride when he'd read Merlin's formal report. He knew that Eggsy had taken up the mantle of Galahad and was now a fully active agent, and he knew that by all accounts Eggsy was doing exceptionally well in the month that he'd been in the field. On paper, it all looked very good.

What Harry didn't know was how Eggsy was handling having ended lives, having saved the world, having lost someone who meant a great deal to him. Was he sleeping all right? Was he was eating all right? Was he was struggling? Was he happy? Harry had spent months in his company, learning his tells. If he could only see him…

But of course, that was impossible, and would be for some time. If he wanted this closure he would have to ask, and as Merlin closed out the last window on the monitor, Harry allowed himself to.

"Mark," he began, and saw his friend's expression soften as if he already knew what the question would be. Harry tried not to think about the last time he'd seen Eggsy and the way they'd left things, the accusations Eggsy had made, the look on his face before Harry had turned his back on him. "How is he?"

Merlin was silent for a long time, staring at Harry as though sizing him up. Finally, he said, "He's performing admirably. He's an excellent field agent."

"That isn't what I asked," Harry said.

Merlin sighed. "Christ, Harry, I don't know," he said, rubbing a hand over his head. He looked strained, more stressed than Harry had ever seen him, and that was quite a bar to pass. "He's busy, working himself into the ground, but we all are. He talks a lot, says very little. We had a hard time at first getting him to take on the name Galahad." 

"What?" Harry said, surprised. "Why?"

"Surely you didn't hit your head that hard. It's only been a few weeks," Merlin said. "He's in love with you; he's grieving. I'm keeping an eye on him."

Harry had thought that he might feel more settled. He didn't. He said, "Thank you."

"For more than just your sake, if you can believe it," Merlin said, rolling his eyes. "Little bastard has grown on me. Like a fungus." 

"Saving the world together does tend to form bonds," Harry said, glad for the distraction. He lazily saluted Merlin with his tumbler.

"God help me if that's true," said Merlin. "He's going to kill us in our sleep when he finds out."

Considering how long Harry was assuming his upcoming assignment would take, it was not hard to believe. "He's far too savage for that," he told Merlin. "He will much prefer us awake and cognisant of his intent."

Merlin snorted, but said nothing else, apparently lost in thought. Harry allowed himself to drift in silence for a bit as well, taking stock of his faculties, of the quiet security of this small flat, of the hard, vital spot in his shrivelled black heart that Eggsy had spent months hollowing out and fitting himself into. 

After a few minutes, Merlin took off his glasses to rub at his bloodshot eyes, and then glanced at his watch. "You know what she's going to ask you to do."

Harry did. He had known since he had received the summons. "Yes."

"You should know that you are the top candidate for the position of Arthur, as well," Merlin added.

He knew that too, as he wouldn't have been invited to this location otherwise, and wasn't certain yet how he felt about it. For much of the last week, he'd considered cutting and running. He was well connected after years of experience. Escaping the safehouse would have been easy and disappearing would have been only slightly more difficult. He could run, carve out a niche for himself somewhere else. Every time the thought had entered his mind, though, he'd baulked for entirely selfish reasons. This life was all that he had ever known and the thought of leaving it scared him more than it appealed to him.

"Eventually," he told Merlin. "I may be gone for a long time."

"The chair will wait for you," Merlin said. "That has been made very clear."

Harry would do what needed doing, as he always did. "Then I will be sure to prepare myself for it."

Merlin continued to stare at him. He had been very patient thus far, but Harry could tell by the look on his face that he had questions of his own to ask. Harry was impressed that he had managed this long, and was not at all surprised when Merlin scoffed, Scottish for exasperation. "Are you going to tell me how you really are or do I need to get the thumb screws?"

"Don't be dramatic," said Harry. "I'm perfectly fine."

Merlin gave him a pointed look, and then poured them each three more fingers worth of brandy. "Of course you are."

Harry's smile was rueful. "You were watching."

"Aye. As was Chester." Merlin hesitated, which was unlike him, before he said, "As was Eggsy."

It had been pointless, but Harry had very much been hoping that the shout he'd heard just before everything had gone black had been a wild hallucination. He let his eyes slide closed for only a moment and contemplated knocking back the rest of his drink, but it would have been a capital offence to waste such a fine brandy. When he opened them again, Merlin was watching him as though he didn't know how Harry would react. Harry folded his hands on the table in clear view to show that he had drawn no weapons. At this point, it was a legitimate concern to have.

"I heard him, at the end. I think he may have spoken before then, as well, but that is...fuzzier," he said. "He must have hacked into my tablet."

"Not an easy feat. Do you remember any of it?"

He would never forget. He had not truly known what he was capable of before, but he did now, and he would not forget. "I remember all of it."

"I'm sorry," Merlin said.

"It wasn't your fault," Harry told him. 

A bit ironic, considering the guilt gnawing holes through his insides, but the dark circles under Merlin's eyes seemed suddenly more pronounced as he donned his glasses once again and said, "I should've realised. I should have realised that Chester had lost his bloody mind."

Harry sighed. "We all should have. Hell, we all _did_. There is a reason that the loyalty of our knights these past two decades or so has been to you and I." 

Chester King had not been entirely level headed even when Harry had first been recruited, as much of an unrepentant show off with a trigger happy finger as any of them, and usually that tended to work in the organisation's favour, but after the murder of his wife and grown son he had changed irrevocably. Over time, even the senior agents closest to him had begun to defer to Harry, the unofficial second in command.

"Still. That Eggsy had to be the one to—"

There was noise from the hall and Merlin broke off; the rest of their party had arrived.

Ector entered first - Harry could tell by the wheeze of his breaths. He was a robust man twenty years Harry's senior with chronic bronchitis and no sense of humour. He shook his umbrella at the floor and said "dreadful weather" to the man who came in behind him. Bedivere was Harry's age and stunningly attractive in the vein of Hollywood film stars. When he chose to be, he was so utterly charming that he could sell glasses to a blind man, but most often he opted not to engage the filter between his arse and his mouth.

"'Dreadful weather,'" he mimicked, cruel but fond. "It's colder than my wife's cunt. Wetter, as well, but that isn't as much of an accomplishment."

"My boy, your depravity knows no bounds." 

"Why are we here, exactly? Did Merlin mention it to you, Lucius? Bit busy in the world right now for all of leadership to be gallivanting off, one would think."

Lucius did not answer, for he had just come into the main room and stopped in his tracks, stunned into speechlessness. Bedivere, attention on his mobile, ran directly into his back. "Fucking Christ, man, what are you—" His voice cut off abruptly upon seeing Harry.

"Gentlemen," said Harry, nodding to them.

"Harry," Lucius said, not in greeting but shock, his thick eyebrows threatening to disappear into his hairline. 

For his part, Bedivere stood gaping moronically behind him until Merlin arched an eyebrow and said, "It's so rare that something shuts your gob, Stephen. How refreshing."

"Do suck my massive dick, Merlin," said Stephen, unoffended and still stymied. Whatever he was going to say next was lost under the arrival of their Guinevere, who stepped into the room as though gliding on air. Harry and Merlin both stood, and Lucius and Stephen both turned to face her.

Victoria swept her hair out of her face with a lovely smile, and then patted Stephen, who was closest, on the face. "It's always so upsetting when you speak, dear."

"So I've been told, madam," Stephen said.

"Undoubtedly," said Victoria. She kissed Lucius' cheek in greeting, and then Merlin's, and then she regarded Harry shrewdly, crossing her arms over her chest and narrowing her eyes. "Harry Hart," she said.

"Victoria," Harry said politely.

Victoria sighed. "With how well you take to orders, I'm shocked you weren't killed in the field long before this. Have I mentioned before what a royal pain in the arse you are?"

"Once or twice," said Harry.

"You always have been, since the moment you were recruited. The stories I used to hear. One must admire the consistency." Victoria took his chin in hand and turned his head to look at the stitched wound slicing through the partially shaved hair on the side of his head, and then turned it again to study his face, tutting. "Well, crawling out of a blood bath is easy on neither the wardrobe nor the heart, but it's good to see you alive, if not entirely well."

"Thank you," Harry said.

Victoria hummed. "I wish I could say that your mental health is high on our list of priorities, but that would be a lie, and we have little enough time as it is. I assure you that it's not as far down as you might think, and that as soon as possible we will have you in mandatory counselling. That will have to do."

Harry smiled solicitously. "I understand, of course."

"Of course," Victoria echoed. "I assume you know why I've asked you here?"

"I do," Harry agreed.

"And I assume you know what I must now ask you to do?"

"I do."

"Good man," she said. She allowed Harry to pull her chair out and sat down at the head of the table. "Gentlemen, we have quite a lot to go over and my flight leaves in just over two hours. Please sit." They sat, and Victoria withdrew a pair of bifocals from her bag and put them on. "Shall we crack on, then?"

 

 

Merlin accompanied him to a secluded airfield well outside the city, where a jet had been prepared to take him to Hong Kong. It was the last assistance he would have from Kingsman until his mission had been completed. Harry Hart was officially deceased.

In front of the steps on the tarmac, he clasped Merlin's shoulder. "I must say I'm relieved to be cleaning up this mess and not the one the rest of you are dealing with."

"Bastard," Merlin said. "Not all of us can be ghosts."

"Or demons. He was always afraid of those." Harry allowed a small, regretful smile. "Does it make it better or worse that my target is a superstitious man?"

"Your target is a deranged sadist who gets his rocks off on all manner of unsavory things and who tortured and murdered one of our own," Merlin said. "A man like that has reason to fear Hell. I for one am glad that neither ghosts nor demons can be persecuted. I hope you take liberties."

"Something like that," said Harry.

The pilot started the engines. Harry gave Merlin's shoulder another squeeze before he let go. Merlin said, "Try not to get shot in the head this time."

"I will do my best."

Merlin snorted and then, inexplicably, pulled a nondescript mobile phone from his pocket and gave it to Harry. "You should know that I gave Eggsy your private number and email address." Harry went very still. He had set both up years ago, updated the security as technology allowed. Only four people could reach him that way. Merlin continued, "It was before I knew you were alive. I thought it might be therapeutic for him."

Harry's tongue felt like it was stuck to the roof of his mouth. After he dislodged it, he said, "Noted."

"I don't know if he's used them," Merlin said.

Eggsy had never been one to hold back when he had something to say. Harry could feel his pulse in the palm of his hand where the phone rested. Merlin looked like he was about to say something else and then changed his mind. He nodded, wished Harry luck, and left without another word, very military. 

Harry waited until he was in the air to check. He had one message. As Eggsy's voice filled his ears - stilted, wavering, pained - Harry closed his eyes.

 _'Hey, Harry, I… I dunno what I'm doing. Guess I thought I might be able to hear your voice or something, but you just got that digital thing tells me to leave a message. Still called about a hundred times and listened to it though. What's that thing Einstein said? Definition of insanity? You make me fucking crazy, Harry. Merlin gave me this number about a week ago and said I should vent. He said nobody could get into it but you so no one would ever hear anything I said. 'Cos you're dead. You're_ fucking _dead and I—_

_'I wasn't gonna. I thought… I kept waiting for you to come back, mate, y'know? But then today we got your — fuck — we got your personal effects back from America an' I… There was so much blood. I made a right idiot of myself. Cried like a baby all over Merlin. Ruined his jumper. He let me have your ring. They blocked off your office, your house an' all. Said I couldn't keep nothing, so now I got your ring like that means fuck all to me. I never even noticed it, and now it's all I got left. Don't fit me, so I've got it round my neck. That's where I keep tokens of dead people, you get me?_

_'They want me to be Galahad. I don't deserve it, not like Rox does Lancelot. I don't really belong here. Merlin says I could. He says you'd want me to have your title. Reckon I believe him. You always liked to show me off. Guess I'll take it. Big shoes to fill, but you know what they say about a man with big feet.'_

A choked laugh was cut short. It was quiet for a long time. _'I didn't mean what I said to you 'bout my dad. It weren't your fault. Been bloody torturing myself about what I said. Been scriptin' out all the things I'd say to you if I got to see you again. Made a list - always liked lists. One, 'm sorry I embarrassed you. Two, 'm sorry I didn't kiss you that night at your house. Three, 'm sorry I disappointed you. Four, fuck you, I'm so far gone for you I can't see straight. Five, fuck you, 'cos you wanted me too.'_

There was a shuffling sound, sheets on skin, perhaps, the creak of mattress springs. _'Six, I should've been at that church. I should've been there with you. I just let you go alone. Sat on my arse and watched you die. 'm so sorry you was alone. 'S-seven, we stopped 'im. Merlin an' Rox an' me. We finished it for you. We—'_

A sudden sob wrenched the near-quiet. A few more followed, muffled, before his breathing forcibly evened out again. Fifteen minutes passed, and then twenty. Eggsy's voice returned wet and miserable. _'I can't decide if I'm glad I got to know you or if I'm pissed off we ever met. Had nothin' to lose before that. How do I make you stop meanin' the world to me now you're gone?'_

After a few moments, he said "fuck this" and ended the call. 

Harry listened to it again, and then again. He listened to it for hours, until the pilot informed him that they were due to land and he forced himself to turn it off. He could not ring Eggsy, as badly as he wished to. He settled for composing an email that he could not send. 

Eggsy,

I don't think I've ever mentioned it to you, but I loathe flying. I always have. When I was younger, I forced myself into as many aircrafts as possible, but I later learned that conquering one's fears doesn't necessarily lead to embracing them. When I must fly, I am more comfortable as a pilot than a passenger. I suppose that's quite metaphorical.

You'll be training for a license yourself in the coming months. It's a requirement of all agents. If you have the same natural instinct for manoeuvring aircrafts as you do cars, you'll run circles around the rest of us. Perhaps our noble breeding lends itself better to having our feet firmly on the ground. You are incapacitated by neither delusions of grandeur nor a fear of falling. I suffer both, and have succumbed to each, as you saw. You will be a far superior Galahad than I ever was.

I wish that I could congratulate you myself, but I fear it will be some time before that's possible. In my second year on the job, mistakes were made by several people, including myself, that have had far reaching consequences. I have been given the chance to correct them, an opportunity I cannot in good conscience allow to pass.

I can only hope that we will meet again.

There is… so much that I want to tell you.

Yours,  
Harry

[ This message has been saved to your drafts. ]

 

 

Harry became Ethan, became Matthew, became Reginald, Eli, Robert, Oscar, Logan, Yes Sir, Oi You. He was a lorry driver, a thief, an informant, a degenerate gambler, a priest of the Church of England, a curious guest. He was the man you met and then forgot, virtually invisible, a ghost, or a demon.

He hadn't dared to hope that Eggsy would contact him again, but Eggsy did, and he didn't stop. His messages were of inconsistent length and subject matter and content. He added pictures and soundbites, emails, voicemails, sometimes both. They held nothing back. They were passionate, fierce, clever, funny. They kept Harry sane, even when weeks passed between them. They kept him _Harry_. He treasured them. 

When he received notification of the nineteenth, eleven months and thirteen days after the first, he was boarding a flight to London, on his way home, Harry Hart once again.

 

 

**JUNE**

"Welcome back," said Victoria. "You look well."

Her office was splashed in morning sunlight, and she sat unconcernedly on the corner of her desk, one ankle tucked behind the other, snipping the ends off the stems of a bouquet of flowers to arrange in the vase next to her.

"Thank you," Harry said. He offered a polite smile. 

She offered a polite smile right back. "We knew that this operation would be lengthy, but you remain as capable an agent as you ever were. A perfectly executed success, to be honest. Very well done, Mr. Hart."

"I should hardly be praised for cleaning up a mess of my own making," he said. 

Victoria shrugged. "You and Alex were both very young, and Chester was foolish to have sent either of you. Not that you're any less reckless now." She gave him a pointed look. "But competence does grow with years. In any event, a threat has been neutralised and closure, I'm sure, has been gained."

"It has."

"Are you still seeing Dr. Williams?"

"Yes, of course," Harry said. He had begun therapy six months before, once the first part of his mission had been complete and limited communication had been reestablished. His employment was contingent upon it. "She has cut our sessions back from twice monthly to once. I believe you have been receiving her reports?"

"I have. I'm very pleased with your progress." Victoria said. The snip of her shears seemed to echo. "Are you still feeling guilty for things you shouldn't be?"

Harry folded his hands in his lap. His fingernails dug in, but not hard enough to leave marks on his skin. He unfolded them and picked up his untouched teacup instead. "Not as much as before. It gets easier with each passing day."

Victoria nodded approvingly. "Good, that's very good. Something so violent — and of course so violating — will take time, but by all accounts you seem to be handling it healthily enough." She smiled pleasantly. There were few things more intimidating. "And now that you're back, I believe it's time for a resurrection."

A thrill of anticipation went through him. "Yes, I agree."

Victoria turned her attention back to her lilies. "Merlin assures me that everything is ready for you to step in. There is only one—" She paused, lips pursing thoughtfully, "—shall we say _unpredictable_ factor to consider."

To say the least. "I have likewise been briefed," Harry assured her. "I don't believe it's anything to worry about. I'll take care of it."

"Excellent. I leave it in your capable hands." Victoria handed Harry one of the lilies, lovely smile not nearly enough to mask the wry humour in her expression. "Do be sure to give Galahad my kind regards, won't you?"

Harry agreed, and that evening found him stepping over the threshold of the tailor shop, where Galahad waited unsuspecting in Fitting Room One.

It went reasonably well, all things considered. A busted lip and bruised ribs were hardly the worst that Harry had prepared himself for. Eggsy looked lovely, arms and legs pinned beneath Harry's weight, dressed in a perfectly tailored suit, red-faced from shouting, badly hurt, accusing Harry of a truly appalling number of simultaneous interspecies relations, and unapologetic of the furious tears on his cheeks. In fact, he looked entirely beautiful.

Harry had missed him, desperately.

Into Harry's chest, Eggsy sobbed near-delirious, "I should've been there with you."

Later, Harry told him, "A Kingsman's first priority will always be his work, but I wanted it to be you."

Of course, a refusal to apologise and a handjob on the floor of a fitting room does not reparations make. 

Eggsy left the shop that night with a new chip on the shoulder of his new suit. Harry left the shop that night with the knowledge of what Eggsy looked like flushed and trembling with pleasure under his hands and the certainty that this single torturous taste of what he wanted most was worth living with the possibility that he would not get another.

 

 

He was officially sworn in as Arthur at UK headquarters several days later. The antiquated ceremony was attended by every senior agent in each of the four departments not currently on assignment, members of the board, and several of the organisation's most generous advocates. It was followed by an after party that served more as an excuse to schmooze donors than it did to celebrate Harry's promotion, which he approved of, now that he was responsible for the department's budget. The combination of ten highly skilled narcissists in one place and a lack of anything else to compete for most often resulted in lucrative fundraising.

He spent his first week travelling with Guinevere, meeting with the heads of each international office who would be reporting to him directly, filling out what felt like several thousand forms all of which made little to no sense, attending infinite budget meetings that reiterated the exact same points with varying levels of emphasis, and attending the swearing in ceremony of the newly elected President of the United States, an important step to America finally regaining some stability in the wake of V-Day.

His second was better in that he was able to decide his own schedule, and he spent it settling into his office and meeting with each of his senior agents in order to gauge whether or not there were ruffled feathers in need of soothing or cuts to be made to the roster.

Fortunately, there were none of the latter and only two of the former. There was no need to meet with two of them - Percival and Kay were close friends and had therefore disclosed every opinion they had on the subject to Harry outside of work (which was to say that they had been laughing at his expense from the moment they'd heard) - so he scheduled eight meetings over the course of three days.

Tristan and Gareth were in their mid to late thirties and Harry had gained their trust when they were new agents and had spent time shadowing Harry on his ops for training purposes. Bors and Gawain had joined Kingsman before he had, were both over forty-five and with fifteen years as a knight under their belt and therefore eligible candidates, but would rather have dissolved their own bodies in acid than taken on the role of Arthur (thank God, because they were excellent field agents and piss poor people managers).

It was only the staunch traditionalists Lamorak and Geraint who were less than enthusiastic about Harry taking command when, as an agent more likely to follow his gut rather than the orders from men who knew better, he had shown only a passing respect for the chain of it. 

However, as he was to Tristan and Gareth, they were to him. They had known Harry since he was twenty years old, had helped train him, had seen him through most of the hardships he'd come across in his life. He knew their wives and children, had been present at the birth of Lamorak's first grandchild. As much as they might oppose major changes within the organisation, Harry was confident that they would remain loyal for personal reasons, if not practical ones.

That left Lancelot and Galahad, neither of whom were a professional concern. 

Roxy had proven herself to be an exceptional agent. Like her sponsor, she was a meticulous planner, a stickler for rules, had a wealth of ambition and a vast respect for authority. Professionally Harry was impressed by her and personally he quite liked her. They spent the beginning of the hour he'd set aside to meet with her formally introducing themselves, as they had met only briefly before she had become an agent, and the rest on plans for her career development.

Eggsy was, as ever, an anomaly. Harry had no real reason to bring him into his office, but he seized the opportunity to spend an hour in his company with both hands and no regrets. Harry's assistant showed Eggsy in at half nine on Friday. Eggsy smiled and thanked her. He had pointedly avoided Harry at the ceremony, and so Harry hadn't spoken to him since their confrontation in the shop fitting room. Harry stood and walked around his desk to greet him, and Eggsy watched him approach with his chin slightly tilted, a look in his eyes that might have been dangerous.

For a moment, Harry thought that Eggsy might hit him again, but then Eggsy's expression cleared into purposeful blankness and he shook Harry's hand, instead. "Arthur," he said. "You wanted to see me?"

"Mm," Harry said. He gestured him toward one of the chairs by the fireplace and took the one opposite.

Eggsy was polite. He was respectful. He was professional. He answered all of Harry's questions. He filled silences with engaging small talk. He asked after Harry's health, and the future of the organisation. He spoke eloquently, with no trace of South London in his voice. He was angrier than he had been the last time they'd spoken. He was, Harry realised, absolutely furious. Every word out of his mouth and calculated movement of his body was a warning and a dare for Harry to try and close the chasm opening between them.

As Galahad, Harry would have taken the challenge, but as Arthur all he could do was respect boundary lines. At the end of the hour, he had to let Eggsy go.

The disappointment still lingered later that evening, and thus the door to his office bursting open was a welcome distraction.

In addition to Merlin, Harry's tightly-knit social circle included the current Percival and Kay. He and Merlin had attended Oxford with Bernard, and Sebastian had been Harry's candidate when the previous Kay retired some eight or so years ago. He had taken the position and, if only through relentless persistence, had become as close a friend to them as they had already been to each other. It was Sebastian who led the way in, followed by Bernard and trailed by an anxious looking Roxy.

"Harry Hart, you glorious fucking bastard," Sebastian said delightedly. He had been on assignment in Johannesburg for several weeks, which meant that Harry hadn't seen him in nearly eighteen months, and so allowed the embrace he was unceremoniously hauled into.

When they parted, he gripped Sebastian by the upper arms and gave him a thorough once over. In the minutes that Valentine's device had been active, Kay had been undercover in a secure office with three men who had been running a human trafficking ring for over a decade. He had killed them and thirty of their armed guards, and had been stabbed six times in the torso and once through the cheek. That he had lived at all was amazing. That he was now in excellent health with a wicked scar on his cheek that only made him more handsome was incredible.

"We're here to collect you for a pub night," Roxy told Harry. "Merlin's orders."

"Right," said Sebastian. He had not moved out of Harry's personal space and was tilting his head as he considered the scar on the side of Harry's. His smile was wide. "Back from the fucking dead, of course. Only you would survive that."

His genuine happiness was touching, so Harry allowed another hug. "I believe you sustained far worse injuries than I," Harry said. "It's good to see you."

At once, Sebastian's expression turned grave. In a mournful voice, he explained, "Oh, yes, I had a terrible time of it. Nearly died. I was in hospital for months. The pain was excruciating. They said I wouldn't make it." He sighed heavily. "And yet here I stand, a miracle before your very eyes. A phoenix, risen from the ashes."

"What he means is that he spent three weeks playing Halo and being babied by the nurses," said Bernard.

"That's not fair," Sebastian protested. "Nor is it true. Sometimes I was playing baby _with_ the nurses."

He smiled rakishly. Roxy did not make a sound, but it was clear from the look she threw Sebastian that she was holding back, and Harry exchanged a commiserating glance with Bernard. Sebastian, like most Kingsman agents and certainly like Harry and Bernard themselves, was handsome, charming, and unapologetic, with a strong sexual appetite and no sense of shame. Unlike the rest of them, he was entirely indiscreet about it. 

"Someone should really see to your mouth," Harry told him.

"The way someone saw to yours," Sebastian pointed out, gesturing to the still-healing split on Harry's lip. His smirk turned amused. "Eggsy, I presume?"

Harry did not ask how he knew. Even if it wasn't Eggsy who told him, gossip travelled like a plague. "Yes."

According to Bernard, Sebastian and Eggsy got on like a house on fire. According to Merlin, they got on like fire and more fire. It was rumoured that every handler under Merlin's employ had learned to dread the phrase _'I have an idea'_ from either of them. It was also rumoured that every handler under Merlin's employ had threatened to revolt if Kay and Galahad were ever sent on another operation together.

Wryly, Bernard said, "I take it he won't be joining us, then?"

Roxy cleared her throat. "No, he won't. He's - ah." She winced. "He's busy, tonight."

"Very believable, Rox," said Bernard. She inconspicuously flipped him off and threw Harry an apologetic look.

Sebastian tutted, still looking at Harry's lip. He reached up to touch the wound. "He really did get you right in the mouth, didn't he?"

"Indeed," Harry said, smacking his hand away. "He was upset. It was a minor altercation."

"Of course," Bernard agreed placidly. "And was this minor altercation before or after you shagged the boy in the fitting room?"

Harry sighed. "My life was far more enjoyable when you thought I was dead."

Bernard put a hand to his chest, wounded, and Harry gathered his coat, resigned to and oddly comforted by the thought of a night spent having the piss taken out of him.

 

 

**AUGUST**

He had thought that after a year spent with almost complete autonomy, stepping back into civilisation would take some getting used to, but he was surprised at how quickly his old life resumed. Time passed, sometimes like years, sometimes like seconds. Harry was busy. He was doing well in his new role. He was doing well in therapy. In his spare time he spruced up his garden at home. He reinforced his armory. He gutted and remodeled his kitchen. He was growing his own basel in little planters on the kitchen window sill. He was functioning and fulfilled. He ate, he drank, he slept. He had nightmares.

They were difficult, disruptive, and painful. At times they were extraordinarily detailed, down to the number of knots in the splintered wood of church pews, the depth of the dimples in a familiar smile, the amount of blood that escapes from a man stabbed through the eye, the sharp hurt where the callouses on his fingertips tear, the pounding of blood in his ears, a London chav reciting lines from the original ending of Pygmalion in sotto voice, two dead men — one swallowing shrapnel, one in two pieces — on perpetually rising pedestals, a hand desperately gripping his own, a voice screaming _No!_ through his earpiece, green eyes and a foul mouth and a challenge all but pleading to be taken to heel. He always woke up trying not to scream and with his prick hard in his trousers, unsettled and aroused in equal measures. 

The vague ones were less consistent, though no less obsessive, and never clear enough to know which suit he was wearing or which hand he held his gun in or what scent was in the air or whether he was in the desert or at headquarters or in the mountains or in his own home. They all ended with Eggsy at his feet, dead and betrayed like his father before him.

Harry tended to wake from those ones silent and calm, lungs still like a boulder rested on his chest, not-quite-but-almost wishing that Valentine had kept his eyes open and _did_ , instead of _tried_.

 

 

For someone who liked to shoot his mouth off so much, Eggsy was alarmingly dedicated to the silent treatment when he deemed it necessary. Harry was at once proud, guilty, endeared, pissed off, and pining. It did wonders for his mood, he was sure.

"He'll come around eventually," Merlin said one morning. It was unprompted, most likely in response to the fact that Harry had been irritably chewing on his tongue for five minutes. 

Lamorak and Galahad were on their way to Chechnya, their camera feeds live on two of the ubiquitous monitors in Merlin's office. Lamorak- Jack - was a gentleman set in his ways, but Harry needn't have been worried about classist prejudice. His only objection to Eggsy was the plethora of bad puns. As Harry watched, Galahad was laughing and Lamorak rolling his eyes. He muttered something under his breath that Harry didn't quite catch that made Eggsy laugh even harder. Harry's gaze was caught on Eggsy's dimples. Merlin's was on Harry, and he didn't bother to disguise the fact that he was staring.

"I know," said Harry. He did, because he knew Eggsy, but he had no frame of reference for how long the freeze out would last. 

It seemed unreasonable that an impatient man should be made to wait.

 

 

An operation went poorly.

Eggsy showed up on Harry's doorstep uninvited on a Tuesday night with an £8 bottle of wine. He wasn't long out of debriefing and he was still rumpled and filthy from an evening spent in impolite interrogation with a disreputable gentleman, followed by a (somewhat) controlled explosion that had been his last resort to escaping with his life.

He had rope burns on his wrists and a fat lip. Harry knew there was more to it, he had read the mission report, but Eggsy had learned to conceal any injury that could be long ago, in the the same manner that he had learned to control the reactions to the ones that couldn't.

"They always hit me in the mouth," he said, swollen lips quirked in a smart grin. "You think there's something to that, Harry?"

Harry stepped aside to let him in, and Eggsy hesitated only a moment before crossing the threshold. Harry closed the door once he was inside and caught the back of Eggsy's suit jacket to stop him from stepping off the mat in the entryway. "Ah-ah. Take off your shoes, please, and then straight into the shower. I've just had new carpet installed."

Eggsy looked sullen but handed over his burden when Harry motioned for the wine and bent down to untie and remove his shoes. "Right," he said. "No offence, mate, but I'm not gonna strip down in front of your stuffed dog. That's creepy as shit."

"Upstairs," said Harry. "Second door on the left through the bedroom."

" _Your_ bedroom?" Eggsy asked, interest piqued.

"Well, yes," Harry said slowly. "Contrary to popular belief I do sleep at night."

Eggsy didn't miss a beat. "Oh, yeah? Conscience still let you do that all right?"

Still angry, then. Harry raised an unimpressed eyebrow but left it at that. He let the silence stretch until Eggsy's mutinous look shadowed and he glanced away. Harry gestured him toward the stairs. "Go on. I should have everything you might need. You can borrow clothes from the chest in the closet. Leave your suit on the bed. I'll have it sent out to be cleaned."

While Eggsy showered, Harry finished tidying his kitchen and then climbed the stairs to gather his dirty clothes. Eggsy had left them folded neatly on top of a towel to keep the duvet clean. It was thoughtful of him, but then again Eggsy always had been thoughtful. Harry tucked everything into a demurely-labelled Kingsman Tailors bag that sealed with his thumbprint and left it on the front step. Once that was done, he poured two glasses of the shit wine Eggsy brought, and allowed himself a moment to feel relieved.

He thought of Eggsy often. He always had, through the months of Eggsy's training, and the year he didn't see him at all, and the last ten weeks of having contact only with Eggsy's well-layered defence mechanisms. At any odd moment, he found himself wondering what he was doing, what he was thinking, how he was feeling, if he'd replaced JB's worn collar, if his family was doing well, if he was smiling, what he thought about this film or that book or yesterday's front page. Since he first saw Eggsy step into sunlight outside the police station, Harry had thought of him very often. He'd begun to fear that he had lost him for good.

He was sitting in the living room when Eggsy came downstairs ten minutes later wearing a well-loved set of olive green pyjamas. They didn't fit. He was of a size with Harry in the shoulders but significantly shorter. To accommodate, he'd rolled the cuffs of the trousers so they wouldn't drag the floor and rolled the sleeves up several times. It was a rather sweet effect, gloriously ruined by the trousers too loose and hanging low on his hips. Harry felt a bolt of heat in his belly at the sight of him.

Eggsy dropped down onto the sofa catty-corner to Harry's chair in an open sprawl, head tilted back and eyes heavy-lidded. Harry handed him his wineglass. "All right?"

"Yeah, cheers," Eggsy said, letting out a deep, satisfied sigh. "Your bathroom is sick. That posh Jacuzzi bath? I should've got one of those at my place."

"I do enjoy it. Excellent for aching muscles." Harry frowned, regretting that he hadn't had Eggsy draw himself a bath to soak in. It was a lovely thing to imagine. "You could have used it. I'm sorry I didn't offer. I didn't think of it."

Eggsy shrugged. "S'all right," he said, voice a little amused. "That what you do after missions, a bubble bath? Pour yourself some of that champagne that's got the little flakes of gold in it?"

"Don't be ridiculous," said Harry. "That's only for special occasions." He settled more comfortably into his chair, ankle on knee. He took a sip of his wine, and immediately regretted it. "A bath, though, yes, depending on the mission."

"Didn't take you for a bath sort of person If I'm honest," said Eggsy. 

Harry blinked. "What an odd thing to say."

"I mean you're not very indulgent," Eggsy explained. "Not with yourself, anyway. Can't imagine you relaxin' in a bubble bath. There's nothin' to do in a bubble bath."

It wasn't an incorrect observation that Harry disliked few things more than idle hands. "That's rather the point," Harry said. "My parents used to take them after stressful days. It always seemed to work for them."

"They probably weren't just bathin', mate," Eggsy said. He was watching Harry. He usually was. Subtlety wasn't his strong suit, and Harry was far more indulgent of his own desires than Eggsy believed. 

"It's very relaxing, one way or the other. Sharing it with someone else certainly makes it more enjoyable."

It was a mere suggestion of innuendo, but it changed the tone of their conversation just enough. 

Harry vividly remembered the last night Eggsy had spent in his house, after the train test. They'd been dancing around each other for months at that point, and there had been a moment, after they'd said goodnight at the door of the guest bedroom where Eggsy had slept that night, where Harry had entertained the idea of giving in, drawing Eggsy to him, cupping his face and kissing his sweet mouth, taking his hand and taking him to bed. There had been so many moments he hadn't taken advantage of because he'd thought he'd have more time. It felt like so long ago.

After a few minutes of swollen silence, Eggsy said, "I used to visit your grave."

Cautiously, Harry replied, "Oh?"

"When I had a shit day, I mean. That's what I did," Eggsy said. He offered Harry a brittle, bitter sort of grin. "Don't work so well anymore."

All the things he was leaving unsaid were clear, every accusation audible in the pained lines tightening his mouth.

"Eggsy, hurting you…" It was difficult to find the right words, and even more difficult to say them. As a rule, Harry kept his emotional outbursts to unloading his clip and drinking. "I regret that my actions..." He stumbled. "I regret that you were hurt by my actions."

"You regret that I was hurt by your actions," Eggsy intoned.

"Yes," Harry said, feeling foolish. As enjoyable as sounding like a bloody moron was, a return of his usual eloquence would've been greatly appreciated.

Eggsy's eyes narrowed in disbelief and he said, "Are you fucking serious right now?"

Harry let out an exasperated breath. "I'm trying to…This is difficult."

"No it's not," said Eggsy. "You're only making it that way. I know you're not sorry. Didn't come here for an apology."

"I'm not trying to apologise," Harry told him. "I'm acknowledging that I am aware that I've lost your trust, and that I hope —"

Eggsy blew a raspberry. "You never had it. I don't trust no one. People have to do what they need to to be right by themself, yeah? I trust that. I respect that. You're upfront about it, at least."

"At least," Harry echoed.

"Christ, look at you. Fuckin' walkin' on eggshells. A little beneath you, innit?" Eggsy asked. 

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing, and when he lowered his hand again Eggsy was smirking at him. "All right, Harry? Headache?"

"Chronic pain in my arse," Harry said dryly. Eggsy laughed, quiet and tired, and Harry knew he was forgiven, that he already had been, probably in the fitting room all those weeks ago. An ache caught in his chest.

"Eggsy," he said gently. "Why did you come here tonight? I know you're still angry."

"A bit, yeah," Eggsy said with a shrug, "but I miss you more'n I'm angry. Tired of missing you when you're right here."

Harry looked down, warm around the collar and uncomfortable with such a blunt admission of feelings. When he lifted his eyes Eggsy's were closed, the bruise on his mouth more obvious in the firelight. Harry allowed himself a moment to appreciate the view of him. He looked at peace in his languorous sprawl but Harry noticed the slight tremor in his hands, the anxious pent up energy and the ghosts in his eyes, aftermath. He was shaken, tired, and terribly vulnerable there in Harry's living room. In Harry's clothes. How terrible, Harry was, to find him so lovely this way.

He stood and crossed the room to sit on the edge of the coffee table in front of the sofa, fitting his knees into the frame of Eggsy's spread ones. Eggsy searched Harry's face, biting at the chapped skin of his bottom lip. Harry thumbed it gently loose from between his teeth.

"I _am_ right here," he murmured, agreement and confirmation. He cupped the curve of Eggsy's jaw and Eggsy's eyelids fluttered. He leaned into it, tilting his chin up and baring his throat. Harry's heart stuttered in his chest with all the things he wanted to do to this boy. He took Eggsy's trembling hands and lifted both wrists, dipping his head to brush his mouth over the raw rope burns, a sharp bolt of heat juddering through him at Eggsy's small gasp. "If you'll let me, I'll stay right here with you."

"Arsehole," Eggsy croaked. He was surprisingly graceful as he surged up from the sofa and into Harry's lap, knees sliding on the polished wood coffee table on either side of Harry's legs. He nearly toppled them both, but Harry managed to steady them and tilted his face up to meet Eggsy's mouth.

It was nothing like the night in the fitting room, for all that Eggsy was in his lap again and the thrum of electricity between them sizzled up Harry's spine the same way. They weren't as angry, for one, and they wanted it more. It wasn't the end of a fight for all that it might've been the beginning of a different one. Harry was cautious of Eggsy's injuries, pulling him in closer by the hips instead of his back, kissing him with quiet brushes of their lips. They'd hardly touched at all and Eggsy was aroused, just from proximity, his breathing laboured. Harry's fingers grazed over the shells of his ears and down his nape, underneath the collar of his pyjama top. He ghosted his lips over the hinge of Eggsy's jaw and Eggsy swore impatiently.

"Don't have to be so careful," he complained, tugging lightly on the hair at the back of Harry's neck. Harry kissed his throat, then the sensitive spot just under his ear, delighting in the way Eggsy turned into every touch, hands restless on Harry's back. "I don't need a gentleman."

Harry slipped his fingers into Eggsy's hair and eased him back, swallowed the unhappy sound Eggsy made in another careful kiss. "You only say that because you've never experienced one before."

" _Harry_ ," Eggsy said, trying to rock his hips into Harry's and unable to with the grip Harry had on them. Harry wanted to take him apart and put him back together again, turn him inside out with pleasure, ease that bruised look out of his eyes. He swiped his tongue very gently over the swollen split in Eggsy's lip and shivered at the needy moan he got in response. He slipped his hands underneath Eggsy's to feel skin and kissed him deeply, taking his time, pressing his tongue into the wet inside of Eggsy's mouth. Eggsy clutched at him desperately, pushing into Harry's hands, fingers digging into Harry's back hard now. He was wearing Harry's clothes, smelled like Harry's shampoo. Harry had never wanted to _possess_ anyone so thoroughly. 

He softened the kiss, reluctantly broke it only to let Eggsy chase after a few more. He smoothed his hands down Eggsy's sides and the backs of his thighs, felt Eggsy's lips press to his forehead and hair and temple. Eggsy's cock was tenting his trousers and Harry keenly remembered the weight of it in his palm. He considered tipping Eggsy back onto the sofa, following him, pressing him into the cushions and making him come, but the thought of him sprawled naked and willing and tangled in his sheets was too vivid in Harry's mind. He removed his hands from beneath Eggsy's top and ran them down his sides again, soothing him.

"Eggsy," he said. "May I ask you to join me upstairs?"

Eggsy tilted his head. "What? Gentlemen don't fuck in the living room?"

"On the contrary, gentlemen adapt to any and all settings," Harry said. Once Eggsy had lifted himself off his lap he got to his feet. "However, I did just get this new carpet…"

"Oh fuck off," Eggsy's laughed, shoving a smugly chuckling Harry away. Harry caught his arm to keep him close and adjusted the too-wide collar of his top, then flicked a few strands of still-damp hair out of Eggsy's face. 

"You really do look lovely in green," Harry told him.

"I look lovely in everything," Eggsy said, throwing Harry a wink. "Look lovely out of everything, too."

"I have no doubt."

Eggsy's gaze flickered to Harry’s mouth and then back to his eyes again, and he pressed his thigh bravely into Harry's groin. Harry raised an imperious eyebrow and Eggsy said, hungrily, "You want me." 

An echo of their last encounter, but anticipation instead of accusation this time, smug instead of angry. He certainly wasn't wrong.

"Very much," Harry agreed, voice going a bit breathy when Eggsy dipped his head to lap tongue over the pulse point in Harry's throat.

"Want me right here, don't you?" Eggsy said, muffled, terribly intimate. "Right here on your sofa. And on your dining room table. Bent over the desk in your office. In your kitchen. 'gainst the front door, maybe." He lifted his head to flash Harry a grin. "All over your new fucking carpet."

Thumbing over the tip of Eggsy's chin, Harry told him, "Tonight, dear boy, I want you in my bed," and caught his mouth in a filthy kiss.

Harry led the way upstairs, Eggsy stumbling along with him, unwilling to pull his mouth from Harry's neck long enough to watch where he was stepping and his hands busy with Harry's clothes. He was very efficient; by the time they made it into the bedroom Harry was bare to the waist, shirt and vest somewhere in the hall, his trousers open. 

"God, you're fit," Eggsy mumbled, lips busy at Harry's collarbone, clever tongue driving Harry mad. His hands were everywhere, fingers dipping into the dimples at the base of Harry's spine and fitting into the gaps between his ribs. His palms caught on Harry's nipples roughly enough to make Harry hiss. "Wanted you for fuckin' ages, Harry."

Harry turned them around, caged Eggsy in against the closed door. Eggsy's mouth was wet and red and his cheeks were flushed and Harry wondered just how far down that lovely pink blush went. He started to work his way through the buttons of Eggsy's pyjama top as Eggsy tangled his hand in Harry's hair and yanked him into another kiss.

The mission report had noted Eggsy's dislocated shoulder and minor shrapnel damage to his arm from the detonation, and Merlin had told Harry of the beating he'd taken beforehand, but the evidence still gave Harry pause as he eased the top from Eggsy's shoulders. The room was dimly lit and Eggsy was shadowed in the frame of Harry's body but the trauma was starkly obvious. Eggsy was blue and purple and slightly swollen all along his right side from shoulder to hip. Harry winced in sympathy. "Well, you don't do anything by halves, do you?"

"Naw," Eggsy said with a rueful grin. "All or nothing. Only way to do it."

"Mm," Harry said. "This from the explosion?"

"'Yeah, threw me into the wall of that cell I was in," said Eggsy. "Merlin called it 'high-velocity impact'. Reckon there's a me-shaped dent in the cement."

Frowning, Harry pulled him away from the door and turned them slightly so he could see the bruising on his back in the cheval mirror in the corner, which was much worse as it had taken the brunt of the impact. 

"Oh, Eggsy," he murmured, ghosting his fingertips over the damage. He had seen far more serious injuries on Kingsman agents, particularly those in their first few years on the job, but it felt different than this. He'd never loved any of them. He carded his fingers through Eggsy's hair, cradled the back of Eggsy's head in his hand and looped his arm low around Eggsy's waist to hold him as tightly as he could without hurting him. Almost cautiously, Eggsy hugged him back, uninjured left arm folding around the back of Harry's neck. The hesitancy ached like a bruise in Harry's chest.

"'m all right," Eggsy said, touching a kiss to Harry's cheek. It was sweet. Eggsy was sweet. Harry nuzzled along the curve of his neck, breathing in the clean scent of him, committing it to memory in case he never had him this close again. Eggsy's free hand had been hovering at Harry's hip, but it slid up his back to curl around his shoulder blade now and Eggsy nosed at the sensitive skin just in front of Harry's ear. "Looks worse than it feels."

"Silver linings."

"A bit sore, though," Eggsy said. He pushed his hips into Harry's. "Rough night, y'know. Better take me to bed."

"Tart," Harry said indulgently, grinning into Eggsy's skin. He slipped a hand into Eggsy's trousers and beneath his pants to grope the plush swell of his arse. "I suppose I'd best. It's what a good host would do."

"Good host," Eggsy slurred distractedly. "Fuck, yeah. Gentleman would do it."

"Well, above all things," said Harry. He pressed a string of wet kisses up Eggsy's neck and caught his mouth again, muffling Eggsy's pleased groan. It felt unreasonably good to simply kiss him, lap over the bottoms of his teeth and let Eggsy suck on his tongue. Eggsy was young and hot and enthusiastic, kissing like it was the end of the world and only calming when Harry made him with a hand at the back of his neck, at which point he melted into the slow sweeps of Harry's lips and tongue.

Harry spun them slowly and walked Eggsy backwards until his legs hit the bed and went to help him down, but Eggsy broke away to breathe, "Wait, wait, I wanna — " He worked a hand between them, worked it into Harry's open trousers and cupped him through his boxers and Harry moaned, biting a kiss to Eggsy's neck that made Eggsy whine. Harry was half-hard, a steady throb in his groin that became more insistent as Eggsy squeezed.

"Wanna blow you," Eggsy muttered, mouth sloppy wet and hair mussed from Harry's hand in it. "Wanna suck you off, Harry, can I?"

Christ. Harry hadn't been laid in over a year, had been entertaining thoughts of this pretty young thing in his bed for months before the Valentine fiasco. He was so turned on he was going bloody cross-eyed, every button he had pressed and held, Eggsy's black-blown eyes wide and a hopeful look on his face like sucking Harry's cock would be all his dreams coming true at once, like he'd be crushed if Harry said no. Harry cupped his chin and smeared the wetness over Eggsy's lips until it shined on his cheek, too. "Is that what you want?"

Eggsy dug the heel of his hand into Harry's dick and Harry tugged on the hair still tangled in his fingers in rebuke, watched Eggsy's cheeks flush and his eyes go glazed with pleasure. "Yeah," Eggsy said dazedly. "Just said, didn't I?"

Harry pulled his hair again, caught Eggsy's answering moan on his lips and soothed the soft sting on Eggsy's scalp with his palm.  
Eggsy's mouth found Harry's neck, his collarbone, closed over one of his nipples and he withdrew his hand from Harry's trousers to pinch at the hard peak of the other one. New facets of Eggsy's cheekiness to take in hand. Harry drew him back up, kissed the corner of his mouth and the split in his lip, the height of his cheekbone and the corner of his eye. Eggsy was tense with anticipation and nerves, still amped up on adrenaline and trembling with desire, and if Harry could doubt the levels to which Eggsy loved him he at least knew without doubt that Eggsy wanted him, standing still with his chin up and daring Harry to give him permission.

"On your knees, then," Harry said.

He couldn't tell whether Eggsy made the choice or if his knees buckled, but he went down gracefully and knelt at Harry's feet with his face tilted up. It was pieces of a thousand different fantasies come to life, seeing him like this. Eggsy sat on his heels, knees spread and his trousers tented, his stomach quivering and his pink nipples hard. Harry wanted to taste every inch of him. He threaded his fingers into Eggsy's hair and Eggsy followed the pressure onto his knees properly and palmed the backs of Harry's thighs. Wet, open-mouthed kisses were pressed to Harry's stomach just below his navel and another above the waistband of his boxers, tongue slipping under the elastic.

Eggsy tugged Harry's pants down and his breath hitched as the sight of Harry's cock. "Fuck, you're big," he mumbled, forehead resting on Harry's abs, so close his breath puffed over Harry's dick as he spoke. "Forgot how fuckin' big you are."

"It was a trying evening," Harry said, letting his eyes close as Eggsy tucked the waistband of his boxers behind his balls and his smooth cheek brushed over the coarse hair at Harry's groin. "Couldn't expect you to remember everything."

Eggsy snorted a laugh and wrapped his hand around the base of Harry's cock, lifting his face from Harry's stomach after placing another kiss there. He pumped Harry's cock a few times, pulled back the foreskin and rubbed the wet head over his lips. Harry stroked his hair, easy pleasure crackling up his spine, and swore softly when Eggsy opened his mouth and took the head in. He started with maddeningly light suction and a clever tongue rubbing hard over the glans, and Harry was just about to admonish him for his cheek when he pulled off to dig his tongue into the slit at the tip. Harry's free hand curled into a fist for lack of something to hold.

Eggsy wet his lips lewdly and shuffled forward, one hand on Harry's hip, the other cupping Harry's bollocks, and pushed his mouth down onto Harry properly. It took effort to keep his eyes open but Harry wouldn't have given up the sight for anything, Eggsy's kiss-swollen lips parting around him, eyelashes on his hectic red cheeks and brow furrowed in concentration. Eggsy went down on Harry with the same effortless skill and dedication he showed in every aspect of his life, unexpected and messy but with irrefutable results.

He went slowly, drawing back for a breath and sinking down again, hot wet of his mouth tight around his cock with rough suction. He couldn't take Harry all the way in but his throat opened up around the head and Harry squeezed the back of his neck, breathing heavily. Eggsy looked utterly dazed with contentment, green eyes dewy and lips stretched as wide as they could go, sucking Harry's cock wet and messy.

"Look at you, sweetheart," Harry said. He stroked a finger over Eggsy's cheek to feel the bulk of his cock in Eggsy's mouth. "You just love it, don't you?" Eggsy shivered and swallowed, mouth stuffed too full to even move his tongue, but he hummed agreeably, sensation of it thrilling through Harry's nerves. Eggsy pulled back a bit, and then more, almost all the way before swallowing Harry down again. Harry cupped his face, thumbing over the stretched corner of Eggsy's lips, and sighed with pleasure as Eggsy whined around him. "Good, like that. Just like that."

It was exquisitely filthy, Eggsy taking him in until his eyes teared, spit dripping down Harry's cock and over his balls, Eggsy's fingers digging bruise-tight into his hip, jagged little moans wrenched from deep in Eggsy's chest every time Harry told him how well he was doing. Every time Eggsy pulled off to breathe he busied his mouth with the crease of Harry's thigh or the heavy weight of Harry's bollocks, which he took into his mouth and sucked with equal fervour until Harry pulled him off by his hair and guided him back to the wet head of his prick. Harry could have finished like that, pulsing in Eggsy's throat, but there was so much more to learn.

He sank to his knees and drew Eggsy into a ravenous kiss, licking into his mouth to taste traces of himself, blood roaring in his head and heart pounding from the rush of the sounds Eggsy made, the sharp sting of Eggsy's teeth on his bottom lip, Eggsy's fingernails digging into Harry's back, Eggsy's scent and taste and voice and body. Impatiently, Harry sat back on his heels, hooked a hand under Eggsy's good shoulder and pulled him onto his lap.

"Lord, but the mouth on you," he said, fascinated by the way Eggsy flushed with pleasure at the praise. Harry parted his knees so Eggsy's thighs spread further and let his gaze flicker over Eggsy's hard chest and flat stomach and slim hips. The bulge in his trousers was too tempting to ignore, so he cupped his hand over it.

"Aw, fuck," Eggsy gasped, shoving his crotch into Harry's grip. Harry hushed him gently, stringing kisses over his collarbone.

"You're all right," he murmured. "Keep still for me, Eggsy. You're all right."

Eggsy couldn't have stopped squirming to save his life, but he did stop shamelessly fucking Harry's palm and Harry rewarded him by tightening his grip, rubbing him firmly though trousers and pants. Eggsy clutched Harry's face and kissed him sloppily, panting against his mouth, body fever hot and voice wrecked from Harry's cock in his throat. "'m gonna fucking come in my pants if you keep that up."

Harry kissed his cheek. "I know.".

He didn't stop, stroking Eggsy firmly through his clothes and kissing every inch of skin he could reach. He fingered the sweat-damp hair at the nape of Eggsy's neck and drew his hand carefully down Eggsy's back. Eggsy was shaking with the effort of keeping still, panting, forehead resting against Harry's temple as he fucked into Harry's hand in sharp aborted thrusts that he couldn't help. Harry's dick was aching for friction but it was easy to find patience when he had Eggsy like this, shivering needily under his hands.

When Eggsy's breath started to hitch on Harry's name, Harry gripped his bum to haul him in closer and deftly slipped his hand into the back of Eggsy's pants to snub a dry finger over his arsehole. Eggsy choked out a quiet " _shit_ " and Harry tilted his head back to watch him come, shuddering and biting viciously at his bottom lip until a quiet sound strangled in his throat and his mouth went lax, eyes closed and nostrils flaring as he rode into Harry's hand with jerky pumps of his hips, hands like claws in Harry's hair.

Harry eased him through it, rubbing soothingly over Eggsy's flank, his palm damp from Eggsy's release bleeding through his trousers. "Oh, Eggsy," he told him. "You are fucking stunning, my boy."

Eggsy let out a breathy laugh, ducked his head to kiss Harry again slowly, pliant and sated. For a few minutes at least. Harry coaxed his tongue into his mouth and sucked gently. His right hand was still on Eggsy's arse, fingers teasing along the crease, passing over his hole sporadically. Eggsy reacted every time, a pleased little flinch or moan or clench of his jaw, so delightfully responsive that Harry couldn't help but take advantage. Harry's breath hissed through his teeth as Eggsy reached between them to touch Harry's cock.

"Wanted you to come, before, in my mouth," Eggsy said, wrecked voice lazy. He reached between them to touch Harry's cock.

"I must admit at the moment I'd prefer something a bit more visible," Harry told him, nosing Eggsy's necklace out of the way so he could mouth over his nipple. Eggsy's fingers carded through his hair encouragingly. He hissed when Harry snubbed the pad of his fingers of his arsehole again and Harry said, "I would have chosen to come on your face."

"Jesus fucking Christ, Harry," Eggsy groaned. "Knew it. Knew under all that polish you'd be a right kinky fuck." He choked off at the insistent press of Harry's finger, hole clenching even though it didn't penetrate. Harry wondered if he could make him come like this, rubbing over his rim until he was begging for something to fill him up. 

"Yes, well," Harry said. "Next time. I am not a young man."

"But I am," Eggsy said with a dirty smirk. "With potential."

He guided Harry's hand back between his legs where he was already starting to fill out again and Harry sighed into his neck, trying to remember if he'd ever been able to do that to quickly, even at twenty-three. He tucked his fingers behind Eggsy's bollocks to hurry the process along. "Great potential," he agreed.

Impatient, he tugged the damp trousers and pants off Eggsy's hips, and with some truly impressive manoeuvring Eggsy managed to get them down his legs one at a time and kick them off without leaving his perch on Harry's lap— "I'm very flexible," Eggsy said, wiggling his eyebrows —- as they swapped slow, sweet kisses that sent Harry reeling with affection.

Eggsy looped his arms around Harry's neck and his bare legs wrapped around Harry's waist. Harry braced him, arms crossing under Eggsy's bum, and deftly rose to his feet. Showing off was unnecessary but it was worth the startled laugh Eggsy let out and they didn't have far to go. "Smug fuck," Eggsy muttered and Harry clucked his tongue, kissing Eggsy quiet.

He got a knee on the bed and eased Eggsy down, careful of his bruised back, biting at his jaw and chin and neck, scraping his teeth over the throb of Eggsy's pulse point to hear him whine. He pulled back reluctantly to remove his trousers and when he looked up again Eggsy had shuffled up to lay his head on a pillow, bedclothes pulled out of place, and had a hand between his legs. He stopped touching himself at Harry's look, flashed his dimples and stretched his good arm over his head. His cock was just as lovely as the rest of him, flexing against his belly pink and thick, foreskin pulling back to reveal the head. As Harry watched, Eggsy casually opened his legs. 

It would have been impolite not to accept such a gracious invitation.

Harry worked his way up, stroking Eggsy's calves ankles to knees as he mouthed along the insides of his thighs and drew circles in the hollows of Eggsy's hipbones with his thumbs. He nuzzled Eggsy's groin, took the head of his cock into his mouth and sucked until Eggsy was swearing in at least three different languages and then swallowed the whole of him, nose to dark curls, and Eggsy cried out. Harry traded mouth for hand and worked Eggsy's wet cock in slow strokes as he kissed his way to Eggsy's navel, dipped his tongue in. He made his way with hot presses of his mouth to Eggsy's chest, laved attention to each of his nipples and left them red and swollen and puffy.

By the time he got to Eggsy's face Eggsy was writhing, cock drippy with pre-come that wet Harry's hand. His hair was a wreck from tugging at it and he was sheened in sweat and grousing impatiently, only a ring of green around his blown pupils. He pulled Harry down into a biting kiss. 

"You're a fucking tease," he said in a hoarse voice.

"I have every intention of following through," said Harry. There was lube in the drawer of the bedside table, which he retrieved, and then braced himself with his elbows on either side of Eggsy's head and resisted when Eggsy tried to pull him down on top of him properly, erasing the pout on Eggsy's lips with his tongue. He was out of his mind with Eggsy so hot and willing underneath him but he didn't want to hurt him. Eggsy only grinned when Harry told him.

"I don't mind. Like it to hurt a bit, yeah? C'mon, Harry." His hands dragged down Harry's back to squeeze his arse. " _Please_ , wanna feel you."

"You will," Harry promised. He wasn't opposed to rough sex, rather liked it in fact, had been entertaining thoughts of fucking Eggsy ruthlessly into all manner of surfaces for months, but Eggsy's bruises looked even more livid in proper lighting and things had been so rough between them for so long. Harry wanted it to last, this first time, wanted to take Eggsy apart at the seams with sweetness, wanted to take care of him.

He cupped Eggsy's face, kissed him once before pulling back to slick his fingers. Eggsy was tight and blazing hot when Harry pressed one inside and his head fell back and he groaned a loud, "Oh, fuck yes," and dragged Harry's mouth down to his again. He was all riled up, riding Harry's fingers with waning patience, a stream of filthy talk mumbled between them with impressive creativity between demands for more followed by stuttering pleas. Harry liked his voice, so he let him talk, but kept to his pace. It was hard to believe this was real, that Eggsy was here in his bed when Harry had started to think whatever possibility they'd had at even a friendly relationship might have been gone.

Eggsy mouthed off until Harry worked a third finger in. Harry watched him tense up, hole clenching tight, hands scrabbling for purchase on Harry's back as words faded to quiet, hitching breaths and small, aching whimpers when Harry rubbed over his prostate. His eyes stayed closed, eyelashes clumped with sweat. Harry pushed Eggsy's damp hair off his forehead, stroked his thumb across the hairline, enthralled by how lovely he was. He curled his fingers and Eggsy gasped wetly and tilted his head in a silent request for a kiss that Harry was helpless to resist.

He pulled his fingers out and Eggsy raised his knees, rumbled Harry's name as he lifted his hips, thighs quivering. Harry wet his lips. The rest of the world was drowned out by unadulterated lust and the tangled mess of painful, ecstatic feelings for this gorgeous boy spread out beneath him. He _wanted_. He wanted to possess, to lose himself, to hide in Eggsy for as long as he could. 

He broke the kiss with a wet sound and after another brush of their lips pushed himself up a bit, reaching for the condom, desperate to get inside. Eggsy caught his hand and gave a minute shake of his head, so Harry grabbed the lube again instead and listened to Eggsy's harsh breaths over the sound of his heart pounding as he slicked his cock.

He hadn't fucked anyone bareback in over a decade; the clutching heat of Eggsy's arse as he guided himself in pulled a guttural moan out of his throat and if it hadn't been for his considerable will power he would have come just like that, barely halfway inside. Eggsy gasped like the wind had been knocked out of him, eyebrows drawing together.

"Eggsy," Harry panted, voice raw.

"Fuck, fuck," Eggsy breathed, squeezing Harry's shoulders. " _Harry_ you fuckin'—-c'mon, c'mon."

He was too tight, too hot. Harry drew back and pushed forward again, found Eggsy's mouth with his own and licked past quivering lips. Eggsy lifted one leg so the inside of his thigh dragged along Harry's hips and then a heel dug into his arse. Harry clenched his hand in the comforter and fucked in, sank another inch deeper this time and Eggsy grunted, moaned high and reedy and muffled the sound by latching his mouth onto Harry's neck.

"Eggsy, Jesus. You—-" Harry broke off, sweaty hand gliding up Eggsy's flank.

"Fuckin' huge," Eggsy choked out. Harry laughed breathily into Eggsy's hair, reached down to feel where Eggsy was stretched wide around him and shuddered with sharp pleasure when Eggsy's teeth sank into his neck in response. "S'good. S'so good."

"You're so tight," Harry murmured fondly. "Do you want me to—"

Eggsy tugged restlessly at Harry's hair and mouthed his way up to Harry's ear, voice slurring and accent thick. "Yeah, fuck, just. Just make me take it, yeah?"

Harry's cock twitched violently. What a gift he'd found in this. Harry took him by the hip and shoved the rest of the way in. Eggsy cried out, the sound so hot Harry's entire body lit up with it, and Eggsy's heel dug harder into the small of Harry's back. He spread his other leg out wide, foot nearly off the edge of the bed. Harry tucked his shoulder underneath the bend of Eggsy's knee to open him wider and dicked in again.

Eggsy was wrecked, panting against Harry's cheek and then mouth, their kiss sloppy and thorough and undeniably good. Harry found a steady rhythm, chasing the surge of good feeling, torn between the tight clench of Eggsy's arse around his cock and the hot sounds Eggsy made. Eggsy's clever hands were everywhere, pinching Harry's nipples, reaching down to feel him slide slick inside, over the arch of his back and then into his hair. He pulled hard enough to make Harry's eyes sting and his cock throb.

"'m gonna come, 'm gonna come," Eggsy panted. Harry kissed him hard and lifted Eggsy's hips so his cock was caught between their stomachs and Eggsy shot off just like that, trembling and hot, back arching and hole pulsing around Harry's cock so tightly Harry had to fight to hold off his orgasm. He shoved in deep and let Eggsy ride through it, moaning wordlessly, licking into Harry's mouth. His limbs went loose and relaxed and he melted back into the bed, pulling Harry with him so they could keep kissing. Harry wrapped a hand around Eggsy’s sensitive cock and Eggsy grimaced and pushed up into it at once. Harry smiled smugly.

"Beautiful," he praised, nuzzling Eggsy's neck. "My beautiful boy."

"Fuck off," Eggsy croaked. He kissed Harry's cheek and jaw and wrapped both legs around him. "Don't stop, don't stop, keep going."

He clenched pointedly around Harry's cock and Harry did as he was told. He fucked him slow, building back up, and then with sharp jabs of his cock that knocked the headboard into the wall and made Harry's vision white out. Eggsy's cock was half hard, hadn't had a chance to truly soften, and he must have been very sensitive caught between them but he was gagging for it, begging, Harry's name spilling off his lips in varying degrees of desperation. Harry laced their fingers together, tucked his face into Eggsy's neck, dicking into him harder, chasing the surge of good feeling curling tight and hot low in his belly.

Eggsy squeezed his hand and in a rough voice whispered, "Shit, you feel so fuckin' good. Want you inside me, Harry, missed you so fuckin' much. Come inside me."

After so long, Harry's orgasm was so intense it felt like time warped around it, the structure of the universe breaking down, so good it was painful, abs contracting and balls drawn up tight and his world narrowed down to sensation. When he came back to himself, he followed Eggsy's guiding hand to lift his face and kiss him. Their hands were still linked. Harry pulled out carefully and dropped down onto his side, kissed Eggsy's cheek and then his smile. He slid his hand through the mess of come on Eggsy's flat belly and between his still-splayed legs, then tucked two fingers back inside him. Eggsy whimpered into his mouth, spreading himself wider, and Harry's soft cock gave a sympathetic twitch.

He eased Eggsy into a third orgasm that left Eggsy trembling all over, wet-eyed, gasping, and very raw. Harry held him until the shudders passed. He felt a sincere smile pull at his mouth when Eggsy mumbled, "Bloody well done, Harry," into his chest.

"I can't take all the credit," said Harry. He kissed the top of Eggsy's head and coaxed him onto his back again, then reluctantly picked himself up to pad into the bathroom. He cleaned himself up and returned with a warm washcloth to take care of Eggsy, who was sleepy-eyed and grinning smugly as Harry wiped him down. They sat up in order to get underneath the covers and Harry turned off the lamp and lay down on his back, stretching an arm out in invitation.

Eggsy hesitated. "I've never slept with someone in the same bed all night before."

Harry didn't know how to respond, so he said, "Well, a night of firsts, then."

He didn't know why it was such a startling revelation, or such a sad one. Eggsy smiled wryly and when Harry reached for him he came down willingly, tucking himself against Harry on his good side. His posture was stiff but after a few minutes of Harry's fingers carding through his hair he relaxed, letting out a deep sigh as the tension seeped out of his body. He pressed closer and Harry's old signet ring and Lee Unwin's Medal of Valour, looped through the chain fastened around Eggsy's neck, fell with a light thump into the hollow of Harry's shoulder. He rubbed his thumb over the swell of the ring, wondering why Eggsy still wore it.

"Eggsy?"

"Mm-hm?" Harry turned his head on the pillow to face him, but before he could ask him about the ring Eggsy smiled drowsily and said, "Dream about this some nights." He blinked his drooping eyes. "Hope you're still here when I wake up this time."

He was very close to sleep. Harry didn't know if he would remember admitting that in the morning. He brushed his lips over Eggsy's brow, guilt and something better and something worse caught in his throat. _Missed you, missed you so fucking much_ was echoing on a loop in Harry's head in Eggsy's brutal, honest voice. It took a surprisingly short amount of time to fall asleep.

The next afternoon, Merlin had to chivvy Eggsy out of the briefing room so he could speak to Harry in private, and Eggsy muttered good naturedly about saving the world apparently being worth nothing in this place as he left. Merlin waited until the door was closed to speak.

"Sort things out, did you?"

"I believe so," said Harry.

Merlin looked back at the door Eggsy had gone through and said, "He's a good lad."

"Yes," Harry agreed, though it wasn't entirely true. It was more likely that Eggsy was simply used to being hurt by those that he cared for and forgiving them for it. Harry cleared his throat. "Yes, he is."

 

 

On Wednesday and Sunday nights, like attending evening Mass, Harry watched the footage his glasses had recorded in South Glade Mission Church.

 

 

He introduced Eggsy to his jacuzzi bath a fortnight after their first night together. He hadn't been able to bring himself to spend money on tacky ingestible gold flakes, but he opened a bottle of an excellent Krug champagne, put a Billie Holiday record on, dimmed the lights and lit a few candles. It was worth having to go into an overpriced boutique and ask for help selecting bubble bath just for the way Eggsy laughed when Harry led him into the bathroom. 

They sat facing each other, legs tangled and suds piled high. The water was almost painfully hot, and they'd used the jets but Eggsy had turned the them off after he'd sat in rapture for three solid minutes and then decided too much luxury was bad for him. He had no such qualms about allowing Harry to rub the foot in his lap. He reclined blissfully, submerged to the nipples, head against the tile wall and white cap askew.

"So this's what you do 'fter missions?" Eggsy slurred. He moaned obscenely as Harry pressed his thumbs into the arch of his foot under the water and ignored Harry's soft chuckle. "Bubbles an' Billie an' all?"

"Not exactly. Usually just a soak before bed." Harry said. "But how could I disappoint when you had such a grand vision? I did already have the champagne, but I’ve never bought bubble bath before in my life." He sighed, pleasantly relaxed as Eggsy’s fingers began to stroke up and down his calf. "I had to go to four different shops to find one that didn’t smell like baked goods."

"All that trouble for li’l old me?" Harry could hear the smile in Eggsy’s voice. Harry opened his eyes when the water sloshed and watched Eggsy get to his knees, most of his lower half still obscured by thick suds. Harry reached for his hands and locked their slick fingers together to help Eggsy keep balance until he was settled in Harry’s lap. As soon as he was, he dipped his hands into the bubbles and soaped Harry’s front, fingers sifting through grizzled chest hair. "You like to make a lad feel proper special."

The bill of his cap was shadowing his eyes. Harry turned it backwards so he could see them, water drops darkening the white wool, and let his fingers linger at the nape of Eggsy’s neck for a moment to appreciate the way Eggsy went still and sweet from the touch. He stroked down Eggsy’s arms and back up the insides, smirking when his fingers dipped lightly into the hair under his arms and Eggsy’s jerked, ticklish. 

"Only the special ones," Harry said.

"Bet you say that to all the boys you get in your jacuzzi."

Harry snorted and tipped Eggsy's chin down for a kiss. "You're the only boy who's ever been in my jacuzzi."

Eggsy pulled back a bit, one of his eyebrows raised and a thoughtful frown on his face. "Thought you said you had plenty of romps in the bath?"

Honestly, so impolitic. Harry said, amused, "Whatever undue number of people you're thinking I've fucked in a bath, I assure you it is not that high." He smiled at the scrunched face Eggsy made.

"I didn't mean it like that," Eggsy said. "You just make it sound like. I mean." He paused uncertainly and Harry found himself terribly intrigued. It wasn't an easy feat to rattle Eggsy, and he had no idea what he'd said that had done it. Eggsy looked down at Harry's hand resting on his belly and then up at his face. Harry got the impression that he was trying to be delicate and was floundering. "I'm not, like. I'm not your first guy, am I?"

Harry blinked wordlessly, looked up into Eggsy's serious face, and didn't even try and hold back the laughter that bubbled up in his chest. It took a bit of effort to keep a swearing, splashing, wet, squirming, and embarrassed Eggsy from pulling away, but Harry controlled his delighted cackling long enough to drag Eggsy closer and kiss his scowling mouth.

"Wanker," said Eggsy, grumpy but pliant under Harry's hands. "Wasn't that stupid a question."

"Don't pout," Harry said loftily, trying not to smile. "It wasn't a stupid question at all. I'm sorry, you caught me by surprise."

Eggsy huffed, cheeks visibly pink even in the dimmed lighting. "Well, you're the one who's all," he dropped his voice into register rather higher than Harry's, " _'Darling boy, I've never let any lads into my_ jacuzzi _before.'_ "

Harry cleared his throat to mask another laugh, though Eggsy was grinning now too, leaning into Harry's palm cupping his cheek and stroking his hands over Harry's flanks. "I see how that might have been confusing," Harry allowed. "But I'm afraid 'jacuzzi' isn't a euphemism. I've shared beds — and baths, if you're going to fixate — with men as well as women, just not this particular one. You're the only lover I've ever invited into my home."

He felt Eggsy's hands go still on his ribs and watched his expression shift fluidly from surprised to disbelieving to confused and then settle on cautiously pleased. A bubble bath and ambiance was hardly inventive as far as romantic gestures went, particularly as it had started out as a bit of a joke, but it was nice and it was intimate. Harry was glad that he'd done it. Billie Holiday crooned _I only have eyes for you_ from the bedroom. Eggsy licked a stray drop of water or sweat from his lip and said, "And you're okay with that?"

Harry tilted his head back to rest on the wall again, offering a wan smile. "Very much so. You thought I might not be?"

Eggsy shrugged, letting his hand slip over Harry's chest. "Reckoned you wanted a casual thing."

The idea of having someone else like this didn't interest Harry. The idea of Eggsy having someone else like this repulsed him. He linked his fingers on the small of Eggsy's back and pulled him as close as he could. Eggsy had to catch himself with both hands on the wall on either side of Harry's head.

"Darling boy," Harry drawled, pausing for a taste of Eggsy's answering grin, "I should warn you that 'casual' is the very last thing I want."

Eggsy blushed. He said, "Fuck, Harry," and a few minutes later he said, "Fuck me, Harry," and half an hour after that, flushed and sated on the bathroom floor with Harry's cock beginning to soften in his arse, he hid a smile against Harry's cheek and said, "Yeah, all right."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~Harry Hart is recovered.~~
> 
> ~~Harry Hart is recovering.~~
> 
> Harry Hart is fucked right up.

_part ii_

 

**DECEMBER**

It had been eighteen months since Kentucky.

"It's been eighteen months since Kentucky," said Guinevere.

"Yes, it has," said Harry.

"You're doing well?"

"I am, thank you."

Victoria eyed him over the rims of her reading glasses. "And your young man?"

She looked impressively wolfish. The fact that Arthur was shagging Galahad was hardly a secret, but it wasn't something that was brought up so glibly in Harry's presence lest one wanted their balls on a plaque in his office. He was one of the most skilled agents Kingsman had ever had amongst its ranks, but he doubted that there existed a knife in the world sharp enough even for even he to cut through Guinevere's nads.

"And my young man," he said.

"He's charming."

"Something like that."

"Not our usual stock. Sweet, really. A bit of a mouth on him." Victoria paused to press her tongue firmly into her cheek. "He's living with you now, I understand?"

Harry gave that the consideration it deserved. Eggsy had a house where his mother and sister lived under the protective eye of the organisation, as well as a flat of his own, but when he said 'home' it was Harry's house he was referring to. Harry had lived there alone for most of his adult life and yet could no longer imagine it without Jeremy Scott in his wardrobe, or cinnamon-flavoured toothpaste next to his own fresh mint, or JB’s food and water bowls in the kitchen, or the constant incessant prattle of the TV on 'for background noise'. Traces of Eggsy in his home that Harry couldn't disentangle himself of and did not want to.

"He is," Harry answered.

Harry was not unaware of how it looked, a perpetual bachelor not long back from a truly traumatic experience (that had, in point of fact, _fucked him right up_ ), shacking up with a pretty boy not quite half his age whose day job was to take Harry's orders. As far as office propriety went it was on the wrong side of ethical business practices. As a matter of morality, it was questionable. Harry hadn't bothered to dwell on it. Behaviour in alignment with the values of Kingsman or not, the fact remained that even edging fifty he was at best irreplaceable and at worst the sort of dangerous that the organisation couldn't risk turning out of its ranks.

"You are in love with him?" Victoria asked.

He thought of Eggsy’s courage, his wit, his intelligence, his beauty and heart. He thought of old guilt and the bitter irony of plundering the spoils of a mistake made nearly nineteen years ago. He thought of the way Eggsy sometimes looked up at him through his long eyelashes with a filthy smile on his face, spread his legs and called Harry ‘Sir.’

"I am," Harry said.

Guinevere's face was inscrutable. Harry had no idea what she was searching him so thoroughly for, what she was hoping to find or not find. He couldn't read her and didn't particularly want to, though he trusted her in a way he never quite had his predecessor. She returned her attention to her paperwork. "And if I asked you to put your puppy down?"

Naturally. This relationship was a risk for Kingsman on a number of levels. Harry would have been disappointed if she hadn't asked. He raised an eyebrow. "I believe I already passed that test, some years ago."

"Same test." Guinevere shrugged. "Different dog."

She glanced at him, challenge clear in her expression. It was a valid question and one that Harry already knew the answer to. He gave it willingly. "If you gave the order, Madam, I would not hesitate to put three bullets in his chest."

Guinevere snorted, her mouth curling into a lovely smile, and dismissed him.

 

 

Harry had dreams.

He woke up gasping and disoriented, his heart pounding in his chest and his right foot kicking out under the covers. He jarred JB, asleep at the foot of the bed, and received such a look of righteous betrayal that he felt ashamed. "Oh, I'm sorry."

JB, being a dog, didn't accept his apology, but jumped down from the bed and trotted out of the room, tail in the air and toenails clicking against the hardwood floor. Harry scrubbed a hand over his face and back through his hair, yawning, still sleepy and somewhat aroused. Next to him, Eggsy was stretched out on his front, face turned away, still and silent. A rare occurrence. It was difficult to tell if he was breathing at all. The anxiety that bloomed in Harry's chest was irrational, but he turned onto his side and drew the duvet down to their hips anyway.

Eggsy was alive, back rising and falling with his slow breaths, goosebumps rising on his skin in the chill. Harry followed their progress, grazed his knuckles from hip to shoulder blade and, unable to help himself, rubbed his palm more firmly back down the same path. What was left of Harry's tension ebbed as Eggsy stirred under his hand, waking. Harry pressed a kiss to the back of his shoulder, and then another. Eggsy lifted his head to look at him through bleary eyes. He was sleep-warm, rumpled and soft. In a thick voice he said, "Hey."

His dosey smile gave him dimples. Harry thumbed over one of them apologetically. "Go back to sleep. I didn't mean to wake you."

"S'fine," Eggsy said around a yawn. He lay back down and stretched, letting out a small moan of satisfaction at the crack of his joints. "You okay? Bad dream?"

Harry hummed noncommittally and rolled onto his back. He'd had a fairly bad dream, but he only remembered pieces, flashes that would have been difficult to explain. "Nothing too harrowing that I can recall. I accidentally kicked JB when I woke up. He left."

"He'll come back," said Eggsy. He gave Harry's stomach a placating pat and Harry grinned, caught Eggsy's hand and brought it to his lips, turning his head to see him properly. It felt good to have him so close, only the gap between their pillows separating them. Harry straightened Eggsy's loose fingers to kiss the pads. Gentle handling, he'd discovered, was something Eggsy reacted beautifully to, as though it was something he'd never experienced before and wasn't used to. Eggsy blushed sweetly, tucking his bottom lip between his teeth.

"My good boy," Harry said, helplessly fond. Eggsy snorted and three of the four fingers resting against Harry's lips lowered pointedly. Harry smiled.

 

 

**FEBRUARY**

Harry had been in the habit for years of doing a big shop twice a month or so to keep his house stocked. He was very strict about making sure it happened on a weekly basis now that he lived with a twenty-three year old bottomless pit who spent half his time on a parkour course. His and Eggsy's formal agreement was to swap weeks, but when work allowed they usually went together. Harry would bribe Eggsy into going to his preferred natural foods shop instead of the nearby Tesco by letting him drive the Aston Martin, and they'd spend an hour walking the aisles, bickering over what to buy. Eggsy would make faces at the lentils and healthy breakfast cereals, and Harry would tap his foot impatiently while Eggsy agonised over protein shake options, and by the time they were finished they'd be halfway to an argument and end up spending far too much money. It was silly, but something Harry looked forward to all week long .It was nice, playing normal. 

It felt oddly like a betrayal to be going without him, but Eggsy had been out of the country on an assignment for eighteen days and Harry couldn't handle another night of take away. The shop was surprisingly crowded for a Thursday evening, loud with the murmur of low voices. On the pasta aisle, he weaved his trolly between a heavyset man and a woman with very long hair and a flowered skirt who was saying, "I see a man in the back."

Curious, Harry followed her gaze to the back of the shop. From this angle, he could only see half of the man in question, an arm and leg in a black suit that disappeared behind the frozen foods section. Harry turned back to choosing a box of couscous off the shelf. 

Eggsy was out of cereal, but that aisle was so full he wouldn't have been able to fit, so he bypassed it completely and nearly bumped into a man by the milk who was sweating profusely.

"I'm sorry," he said.

The man nodded. "Have you seen the news?"

Harry wasn't one for chit chat with strangers, but couldn't think of a polite way to move on without engaging, so he smiled pleasantly. "No, not tonight. Has something happened?"

"I'll say," said a lady, coming up behind him. "You should watch the news."

"Ignore her," said the man.

Harry frowned, confused, and turned down the bread aisle. The shop had become even more crowded, and the low murmur of voices had begun to rise. He pulled his mobile from his pocket, wondering if he'd missed something, mind immediately bringing up a thousand terrible things that could have gone wrong on the high-risk operation that Eggsy was leading in Ukraine. His only new message was from his secretary, a reminder for a meeting with Merlin and Bedivere the next morning. He caught pieces of the conversations going on around him: a laughing woman saying "...red as the sun", a younger man in a striped shirt muttering "those who doubt", an old man with a thick American accent whispering, "I am in the parking lot."

Harry looked past him. He was near the checkouts, and the woman walking toward him from the corner had a nondescript face and lank brown hair. She said, "You're bleeding."

"I'm sorry?" said Harry.

The woman pointed at him. "There's blood. You'll drown." She wore a necklace, a big silver cross pendant resting on her chest. Harry reached into his jacket and withdrew his gun. It became suddenly very quiet.

"Can you hear me?" someone said.

"You'll drown," said the woman.

"Harry!" 

It was Eggsy, rushing toward him from the back of the shop.

"I am going into the church," someone whispered.

Harry switched his aim from the woman with the cross necklace to Eggsy. His hands were steady. He pulled the trigger and shot Eggsy in the face.

The world rushed back into focus. His head was throbbing. There were a few drops of blood on the steering wheel. He was still a good ten minutes from the natural foods shop and a lamppost was crushed into the front of his car. The radio was skipping. After a few seconds the navigation screen flashed and Merlin's voice filled the cabin.

"Harry? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Harry said. A man and woman were approaching from across the street, looking concerned. He gripped the steering wheel so tightly he felt the ache all the way to his shoulders. "I'm fine."

 

 

Dr. Williams was very gracious about not staring at the butterfly bandage over the cut on Harry's forehead as he told her everything he could remember about the shop he'd hallucinated and what had happened inside it.

"What song was it?" she asked. When Harry looked confused she said, "You said that you believe a song that was playing on the radio in your car caused the episode."

Harry frowned distastefully at the word 'episode'. "No, it wasn't a song. It was an audio file of basic Ukrainian phrases."

"Ah." She hummed thoughtfully. "I thought you already spoke Ukrainian?"

"I do," Harry said. "Eggsy had to learn for his current assignment. He was the last to have driven that car. I didn't bother to change it, and it was going through a category on places."

"Ah," said Dr. Williams again. "Places like a church, perhaps?"

Harry fought the urge to chew on his tongue. "Yes. The people that I." He paused to clear his throat. "The people in the shop were using the same phrases as part of their conversations."

Dr. Williams nodded, the ponytail she'd pulled her dreadlocks into swishing side to side. Harry's head was still painfully sore, and beyond that he was rather humiliated and, under layers of a distant numbness, frightened. The shop, the members of the South Glade Mission Church, the things he'd put in his trolley, Eggsy jogging toward him — it had all been so realistic. He could remember the sound of footsteps on the tile floor, the stench of the sweating man, the way Eggsy's skull had blown apart.

He swallowed hard. He had been so lucky the night before. He'd been completely absent, and behind the wheel of a car. He might have killed someone. He would have to resign, if he couldn't be trusted to know reality from mental construct. The idea of leaving Kingsman terrified him.

"You think it was a hallucination?" asked Dr. Williams.

"For lack of a better term," said Harry.

She set her tablet down and met his eyes. Her expression was calm. Harry had been working with her for nearly two years and had come to know her as someone with quite an emotive personality. She'd always been very blunt about her thoughts and feelings, and he perceived no serious concern from her now. "Harry, how do you think your recovery is coming?"

Harry had been asked that question nearly every time he'd attended a therapy session in the last several months. It was one he found easy to answer honestly. "The nightmares have dwindled considerably, and I don't find myself dwelling on what happened so often. I don't… I didn't know this was possible. Hallucinations so long after the fact?" He shook his head, gaze distant. "I've been fine. I've been happy, even. I've done everything you've suggested, and it's helped. I thought I'd moved past it."

Dr. Williams was silent until she was sure he had finished speaking. "All right, well, I am going to disagree with you on a few counts." Harry bristled, but nodded his consent and she went on. "However, first I would like to assure you that at the moment I am not worried about recurring episodes. At most I will suggest that you not get behind the wheel of a vehicle for the next few weeks. Your career is not currently in jeopardy."

Harry tried to suppress the hope that loosened the iron grip around his lungs. He was too familiar with the expression Dr. Williams wore now. She went on, "That being said, you didn't answer my question. How do you think your recovery is going?"

Harry frowned, puzzled. "It's going well," he said, and then rolled his eyes at himself. "Each day is better than the last. I thought it had been going well."

Dr. Williams tilted her head, crossing her arms over her chest. "Really? Because it seems to me as though you've hit a plateau that you've been happy to stay in for quite some time, now, and that can lead down a very slippery slope."

Anger was easy for Harry to grasp. It had been for months, always lying in wait. "You make it sound as though I've chosen this. I've done everything you've suggested. I've answered every question you've ever asked."

"You have," Dr. Williams agreed. "You've told me everything that's happened. I'm not accusing you of keeping secrets, Harry. Your mind has naturally been trying to protect itself from harm by letting you put these painful thoughts and feelings on a shelf and keeping them there, but you can't keep it up. You experienced a mental break yesterday, triggered by a single phrase that made you think about things you've been avoiding. Repression is never the solution." "I have not been repressing any—" "I worded that badly," Dr. Williams said, cutting him off. "I apologize. What I meant is that you have done wonderfully dealing with certain aspects of the trauma that you experienced. I think you've done very well dealing with the anger and violence, but those are only part of the problem."

"Part of the problem," Harry repeated flatly. "Murdering forty-eight people is only part of the problem."

Dr. Williams did not look impressed. "Certainly, though I believe that is rather simplifying the matter."

"Mm," Harry said helpfully.

Dr. Williams said, "I don't think that guilt is the only toxin in your system. You know that you were not in control but I don't think you've accepted the logical conclusion to that. Nothing in that church happened with your consent. I think you've been ignoring the fact that you suffered a brutal and personal violation."

Harry's frown deepened. "That's a harsh word to use."

Dr. Williams raised an eyebrow. "It's the correct one. I would also like you to take some time and think about why it is that you have subconsciously included Eggsy into your recollections from Kentucky. That's something we should explore."

Harry's head was pounding and he was rapidly losing patience. Frustration, like shame, was something he was well versed in. He took a slow breath and gestured to the clock on her desk. "I believe our time is up."

Dr. Williams only nodded. "So it would seem."

Harry stood and shook her hand, and when she said she wanted to see him again in one week instead of one month, he clenched his jaw and did not argue. Two years later, and back where he'd started.

When he got home that evening the TV was on, turned to _The King and I_ on the classic films channel. Harry found Eggsy in the kitchen, stripped to boxer-briefs, washing dishes at the sink. He must have been clued into Harry’s mishap by Merlin, because when he looked around at Harry he grinned, gaze passing over the wound on Harry’s head as though he’d expected it to be there.

"I made pasta," he said. "And sauce. From a jar."

"Oh?"

Eggsy must have had groceries delivered, because they hadn’t had either of those things when Harry went to work this morning, and Harry felt another quiet burst of shame and uneasiness that he quickly squelched. He crossed over to the sink and took up a dish towel to help dry. Once they were finished Harry folded the wet towel over the handle of the oven and sniffed cautiously when he noticed it was on. It smelled like baking bread, but one could never be too sure with Eggsy. Harry said, "I thought we had an agreement about you cooking."

Eggsy made a face. "A little bit of food poisoning one time… "

Harry felt himself smile, weight on his shoulders feeling infinitely lighter. He took Eggsy’s hand and drew him away from the sink as music from the telly filtered in from the living room. He didn’t know _The King and I_ very well, but the song was slow enough to suit his purposes. "Dance with me."

"That’s a bit soppy even for me, mate," Eggsy said, but he looped his arm around Harry’s neck. They were, in fact, excellent dancers. Eggsy had taken several years of lessons as a child, and Harry’s grandmother had made sure he had been well trained for social occasions himself, but there was little need for finesse in this. Harry wrapped one arm around Eggsy’s waist and took his free hand in his own. He hummed in time with the music, leading Eggsy in slow, gliding circles around what little room they had between the island and the door. He hit a particularly high note with no more than passing aptitude and Eggsy peered up at him with exasperated affection. "C'mon, then. You gotta sing, too."

"If anything could ruin the moment it would be my singing voice," Harry said.

"Yeah?" said Eggsy, a cheeky grin on his face. "This a moment, then?"

"Yes, as is every one that I spend with you." Harry kissed his temple and ignored Eggsy’s groan. "Besides, I don’t know the words. You sing."

"I don’t know them, either," said Eggsy, wrinkling his nose. He looked over his shoulder as though he might be able to see the telly through the wall. "What is this? Casablanca was almost over when I came in here." He shrugged when Harry told him. "Never watched it. How’s it end?"

It had been years since Harry had seen the film and he only remembered pieces, and not much of the ending, but it sounded right when he said, "I believe the king dies of a broken heart."

"Shit," said Eggsy, half-mocking. "A bit melodramatic, innit? Is that even possible?"

"I don’t know," Harry said. "I suppose it might be. The mind is a powerful thing. Then again, in the case of musicals, I would think melodrama is rather the point."

He stepped back a bit, raised their joined hands and twirled Eggsy under his arm like a ballerina as the music crescendoed. Eggsy laughed and let himself be pulled close again, his back to Harry’s chest. Harry interlaced their fingers and wrapped both their arms around Eggsy’s middle, exhaling deeply, smiling into Eggsy’s hair. He felt exhausted, but his headache had faded and satisfaction at having Eggsy back in the country and back in his arms had trumped the dizzying irritation left over from his therapy session. This house hadn’t felt like home with him gone.

They only swayed now, feet hardly moving at all. Eggsy tilted his head back onto Harry’s shoulder and closed his eyes. "I guess I get it," he said after a bit. "My mum kinda, y'know, stopped for a bit, after me dad died. If she hadn’t had me to take care of, she might not’ve come back."

It was an unexpected and painful reminder that Harry hadn’t been prepared for. He faltered and Eggsy swore softly under his breath. "Shit, sorry. Talk about ruining the moment, huh?"

Harry shook his head, though Eggsy couldn’t see it, and slid their joined hands up Eggsy’s torso to the middle of his chest. "Not at all."

Eggsy didn’t buy the lie but he didn’t call Harry out on it, only untangled their hands so he could turn around again and tucked his chin over Harry’s shoulder, letting out a contented sigh. Harry kissed the side of his neck and drew circles with his fingertips on his bare back, more than willing to let the tension go and move them onto safer subjects. "Your mission was a success, I presume, Galahad?"

"Yup." Eggsy popped the ‘p’. "Report should be in your inbox, but don’t bother reading it, I can tell you what it’ll say. It’ll say _'Agent Galahad kicks Neo-Nazi arse. Promotion recommended. Blow jobs also recommended. Sincerely, Merlin.'_ "

"Sounds just like him," Harry said.

The song had ended, but they kept swaying in time like it hadn’t for a long time before Eggsy pulled away a bit. Harry kept still to let him brush his fingers over his brow just underneath the bandage, but didn't offer any explanation. He didn’t want to talk about it. Eggsy was home for the first time in weeks and most of the way to naked in his arms. Harry’s plans for the night didn’t include much more in the way of conversation. He frowned warily as Eggsy’s fingers carded tenderly through his hair, careful of the bruise.

"Harry," said Eggsy, "if I ask a question will you answer honestly?"

"Of course," Harry said, stomach sinking.

Eggsy gave him a very serious look. "Is the car gonna be okay?"

Harry barked out a startled laugh. The concern on Eggsy’s face wasn’t subtle, but he was smiling. Harry liked his dimples. He tipped Eggsy’s chin up, pressed a chaste kiss to his lips and promised, "The car will be fine."

 

 

**APRIL**

Harry's favourite pub was currently called Artisan Jack (previously, Jack had been a soldier, a crown prince, and a Corgi). He and Merlin had discovered it as young agents and traditionally were known to meet up of a Friday evening for drinks and conversation. If schedules allowed, Eggsy, Roxy, Bernard, and Sebastian joined them. One such Friday, Harry commandeered their usual table in the corner with clear visibility of both exits, and as he was the first to arrive he ordered a whisky for himself. He was on his second when Merlin took the seat next to him.

"Harry," said Merlin.

He eyed Harry's empty glass, and then the half-empty one in Harry's hand and raised an eyebrow. Harry made a show of taking a sip.

"You've been coming here a lot," Merlin said.

Harry offered his friend a bland smile. "Have I?"

"Since about that night you wrecked your car, actually," said Merlin. "Funny, that."

His voice was casual. It was an expression of mild concern and not judgment; Merlin was just as much of a functional alcoholic as Harry was. Harry toasted him cheekily. "Drinking is a tried and true coping mechanism."

Merlin said, "How's therapy?"

"Oh," Harry answered drolly, "it's much better than therapy."

It had been nearly three weeks since his accident, and the days seemed to have passed very quickly. Harry had spent much of the time that he wasn't working losing himself in near constant athletic sex with Eggsy, which was excellent on a number of levels, not the least of which that he had finally met someone whose sex drive was comparable to his own. When that option was off the table, he'd discovered that taking the edge off with booze helped the hours along nearly as well.

The timely arrival of the waitress with Merlin's beer prevented further interrogation, and within fifteen minutes Bernard, Roxy, and Sebastian had joined them at the table. Harry opened a tab on the company and ordered a round for everyone, and was content to sit back and listen to the others talk. It was the perfect noise level in the pub to let his attention wander in relative peace. There was a harrassed-looking young man in the opposite corner, dangling a chip near his mouth but too intent on the open text book in front of him to remember to eat it. The girl at the next table was watching him hopefully. Two older men in business suits were chortling at a table in the middle of the room, and a man and woman behind them were leaning toward each other as they talked, her foot rubbing over the length of his calf under the table. He wondered how they'd come across this place, and then decided he was wholly uninterested in finding out.

His attention drifted back to his own party some time later, during Sebastian's exaggerated tale of the decadence he'd indulged in during his last assignment. It apparently involved a number of two million pound bottles of wine, a Klimt painting, and relations with several members of the Stuttgart Ballet. 

"You should've been there, Boss," Sebastian finished, lifting his glass in Harry's direction. "You would have enjoyed yourself."

"He has his own ballerina," Roxy pointed out, taking the words right out of Harry's mouth. He clinked his glass to hers and she smiled.

"Eggsy?" Merlin asked. "I thought it was gymnastics."

Harry nodded. "One led to the other. He stopped both in his early teens."

"No shit," Sebastian said. "I can see it, though, way he moves." He grinned at Harry. "Where is your boy, anyway?"

Harry sighed, forever doomed to surround himself with impertinence. "My boy," he drawled, "has plans with his mother this evening."

Percival tilted his head. "And you weren't invited?"

"Not as such."

"She doesn't approve?"

"Not as such," Harry repeated. It was less of a sore spot for him than it probably should have been. He and Michelle Unwin were content to avoid each other and would continue to do so until Eggsy asked them to get along, which thankfully had not happened yet. "It's a delicate situation."

Merlin laughed meanly and Percival hid a grin behind his beer, and Sebastian could be trusted to smile genially no matter how awkward the silence. Harry was therefore eternally grateful for Roxy, who couldn't bear it and changed the subject. "Oh, Arthur, I’ve been meaning to ask you—"

"I assure you that we are off the clock, Miss Morton."

"Sorry," said Roxy, not sounding sorry at all. "Harry. Are you doing something for Eggsy’s birthday?"

Harry was about to say yes, he was, and that it was highly classified, but Sebastian broke in before he could, disgruntled. "Wait, birthday? When is his birthday? How old is he?"

"Two weeks," said Roxy. "He’ll be twenty-four."

"Twenty-four," Bernard mused, mock impressed. "Why, that's very nearly a grown up."

Harry lifted his drink to his mouth, positioning his hand on his tumbler in a way that clearly presented Bernard with his middle finger, ignoring his smirk. Sebastian had his mobile out and was bringing up the web browser. "I had no idea. Why didn't he say? And here I thought he trusted me."

Roxy snorted in glorious derision. "Don't hold your breath. Eggsy will never trust any of us. We all shot our dogs."

"That seems harsh," said Sebastian. He looked fond, as though Eggsy was living up to all of his expectations. "But true. I'll need to get him a present."

"Might I suggest the entire Adidas catalogue?" Merlin offered dryly.

Sebastian looked to Harry uncomfortably and Harry shrugged. Though Harry was admittedly grateful that the clunky chain bracelets seemed to have been a phase that Eggsy was now over, Harry had grown rather fond of his horrendous wardrobe. He particularly liked the caps, and offered that as a suggestion to Sebastian, who jotted down the brand with a pained expression.

Bernard sighed. "Lord, Harry, it's been ages since you've had a sweetheart to woo. Merlin, do you remember that MI6 agent he was gone for years ago? Ella something?"

"Ella White," said Merlin. Harry gave a put upon sigh and Bernard looked delighted. Sebastian had heard the entire story a few years after joining the organisation, on the night he'd had his heart irrevocably broken by a Dutch baroness and Harry had been feeling sympathetic, so Merlin filled Roxy in on the gory details. "She was an incredible woman. He was infatuated, spent weeks and several thousand pounds courting her before he discovered that she was happily married. He hadn't bothered to ask."

"She let him down very gently the night he proposed, though," Bernard added. He was a very good story teller. "She felt terrible for rejecting him."

"You _proposed?_ " Roxy asked, appalled. "After only a few weeks?"

"I was in love," Harry sighed.

Merlin and Bernard were laughing, and Sebastian was busy on his mobile, but Roxy looked sympathetic.

"Aw, Harry," she said, her ponytail swinging with earnestness. She patted his arm. "I can't even imagine someone turning you down, even if they were married."

"He moped for months," Merlin said.

"Well it was very upsetting," Harry said. "No one had ever told me no before." 

Roxy burst into infectious laughter and Harry allowed a smile. He hadn't thought about Ella White in years, and the memory of that time — miserable as it had been for him while living it — filled him with fondness. "Ah, well, you can't blame a boy. I was hardly twenty-seven."

Bernard raised an eyebrow. "And Eggsy is about to be how old, again?"

"Exactly," said Harry. "So I'll thank you not to judge him for his choice of partners at this juncture."

Bernard waved a hand dismissively. "Anyhow, I'm curious now. I assume his birthday gift is not a five carat diamond. What did you get him?"

Harry shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't say."

"Something practical," Sebastian guessed. "Something he'll have a use for. Oh, Merlin!" His face lit suddenly with excitement, most certainly overstated for whatever he'd just reminded himself of. "The prototype for the new mics are gorgeous, Nina was showing me. And did I tell you that Tristan and I were able to use the short-term sedative on our last assignment? Whatever you've done to the formula, it's fantastic. Hardly any side effects."

Startled by the abrupt topic change, Roxy turned her confused gaze to Harry as Merlin and Sebastian dove enthusiastically into shop talk. "Unrelated," Harry assured her. "I'm not giving Eggsy a sedative for his birthday."

She grinned, and then tilted her head and pursed her lips, considering. "I suppose if you were, it certainly wouldn't be a short-term one."

Bernard raised his glass to her. "That's my girl."

Harry was pleasantly tipsy when he made it home. He ate leftover roast for dinner and then took JB on his evening constitutional and spent a couple of hours in the sitting room with a good book and a glass or two of scotch. By the time he retired to bed he was closer to drunk and more willing than usual to let JB curl up against his stomach. It took only moments to fall asleep.

Eggsy joined him sometime later. Harry didn't fully wake, vaguely aware of knees tucking into the backs of his own, a warm weight pressed all along his back, and slender fingers stroking through his chest hair. He slept again, and didn't dream.

 

 

_There's blood. You'll drown._

"Eggsy was not in that church, Harry," said Dr. Williams.

"I know that," Harry said.

 

 

An operation went perfectly.

It was an assignment that had been in the planning and reconnaissance stages for nearly half a year, one of the most dangerous international criminals they had ever targeted before, and a joint operation between Kingsman and MI6. On paper, it was a five day op. Considering what they were walking into, it was estimated that Arthur, Bors, and Gawain would be out in the field for the better part of a month.

Six days and two hours after they'd left for Bangkok, they were back in London, watching as two short-spoken MI6 agents led their bound and groggy target off the tarmac. Once they were out of sight, Gawain said, "Well, that doesn't happen often."

"I find it unsettling," said Bors, sweeping back his thinning blond hair. He sounded offended.

"And a bit of a let down," said Gawain.

"If our only complaint is that things went too smoothly, I believe we can skip the debrief," Harry told them, starting toward the cars that had been sent to collect them. "Merlin?"

Merlin's voice rumbled in through their earbuds. "Agreed. Excellent work, gentlemen. The rest of the evening is yours. Gawain, you should drop by HQ, your plant in Mozambique wants a word."

"I'm headed there too," said Harry. 

Bors and Gawain both looked at him oddly and he raised an eyebrow. Gawain tilted his head. "Don't you have plans?"

His plans had been to deal with the inevitable fall out of a doomed mission, but as that hadn't happened his schedule was quite clear. "Only to catch up on some paperwork, I'm afraid. I shouldn't let the extra time go to waste."

"Ah," said Gawain, still looking at him strangely.

Harry said goodnight and got into the back seat of his car and smiled politely in reply to his driver's "Welcome back, sir."

"Thank you, Carl. To the shop, please."

He strapped himself in, crossed and then uncrossed his legs, cleared his throat and folded his hands in his lap as f they began to move. It was dusk, the early Spring sky dark orange and rapidly dwindling into darkness. Harry let his gaze drift from the sinking sun out the window to his knees.

"How did your meeting go, sir?" Carl asked.

"It went well," Harry answered. "In fact, it went perfectly."

He had been prepared for everything but that.

Like Bors, he was unsettled. This operation had taken up most of his time and energy for months. Planning, strategising, training, researching – they had mapped out everything that could go wrong and how to react when it, inevitably, would, because the chances of not hitting every trip wire had been slim to nil. Smooth sailing had not been part of the plan.

He lasted perhaps thirty minutes in his office, but was too jittery to get much done, and spent another half hour at the firing range instead. He felt no better after that, and after ducking into Merlin's office only to find him irritatingly busy, he gathered his things and called for the car again.

He was looking forward to some proper sleep, if he was honest, and could only hope that the distortion of jet lag and the unsatisfied adrenaline rush that had found no release would allow it. Once home, he took the duffel that Carl unloaded from the boot and gave to him, said goodnight and started up his front walk. He counted each measured step.

The deadbolt was unlocked and inside he could hear his TV from the foyer. When he went to hang up his overcoat he found Eggsy's on the hanger Harry usually put his own on. _There's blood. You'll drown._ He took a slow breath and chose another hanger. In the living room, the overhead light was on and JB was curled up snoring in Harry's favourite chair. Whatever sitcom was playing on his telly had a laugh track that was already driving Harry bloody mad. _I should have-_

The kitchen was clean, the kettle inexplicably put away in the cupboard. He filled it and put it on the hob before he realised with disproportionate disappointment that he was out of tea. "Damn it."

It was only just after seven, he could easily run out and pick up a new box, but his head hurt enough that the short walk to the shop seemed an insurmountable distance. He breathed through the tightness in his chest, reached up and touched the scar tissue on the side of his head. As always, it felt like he had touched an exposed nerve, and sharp discomfort shuddered through his whole body. The sound he made through his gritted teeth was lost under the sound of JB's toenails clicking on the hardwood as he trotted into the kitchen and gave Harry a passing look on his way to his food bowl in the corner.

Harry heard his name called from upstairs, unbelievable given the volume of the TV, and then footsteps overhead and then on the stairs, the creak of the third step that he'd been meaning to fix for some fifteen years, Eggsy's familiar, swaggering gait in the hall.

"Harry?" said Eggsy. _Harry!_ He poked his head around the doorway and walked in properly when he saw Harry, his face lighting up with a smile. _Harry, I'm so sorry._ Harry dipped his head to accept the kiss Eggsy pressed to his mouth, but his skin felt tight and oversensitive and the pressure was painful. He pulled away abruptly, overly aware of his heartbeat, and upon catching sight of Eggsy's disgruntled expression he offered an apologetic smile.

"Hey, you all right?"

"Fine," Harry said, cracking another grin at the face Eggsy made. He amended. "Mostly fine. Just jet lag, I think. I've got a headache."

"Oh, here, I got some more aspirin," said Eggsy. Harry uncharitably thought that he would have been more grateful if Eggsy had got some tea instead, but he caught the bottle Eggsy pulled from the cabinet and threw him. "Sorry about the head," Eggsy was saying. "Glad you're home, though. I didn't know if you'd make it."

That was a bit doom-sayer, Harry thought, and the implied lack of confidence rankled even if it had been a joke. He straightened the shoulders he'd momentarily allowed to slouch. "Actually, we managed to stay exactly on schedule." He snorted when met with Eggsy's comically raised eyebrows. "I know. Nearly unheard of."

"Totally unheard of, more like," said Eggsy. "Merlin must be shitting himself."

"I'm sure that I wouldn't know," said Harry.

Eggsy winked and dug his vibrating phone out of his front pocket. Whatever message he'd just received made him smile. He didn't share it with Harry. "Weren't you lot expecting this one to go tits up in a big way though?" He asked, half his attention on his mobile. "David made it sound like you was all goin' off to war. Said this Wiggins bloke makes Hitler seem sane."

"David shouldn't be discussing classified information with you," Harry pointed out.

"He just let the name slip," said Eggsy. He'd gone across the kitchen to get the medicine and hefted himself onto his favourite stool at the island. Harry only had the light on the bottom of the microwave above the hob to see by, and he could have put his glasses back on to see properly in the dark, but it felt easier like this, all of Eggsy's edges softened in the dimness.

"It doesn't matter," Harry said. His mouth was dry. He hadn't had anything to drink in several hours, and he was still palming two capsules of aspirin, so he pulled a glass from the cupboard and turned the tap on to fill it with rather more force than was necessary. "Assignments are classified for a reason."

Eggsy shrugged one shoulder distractedly. "It's not that big a deal though."

"Don't be absurd. Of course it is. It's a very big deal," Harry said firmly, irritated. A doorbell on TV set JB off racing to the living room, barking madly, and Harry grit his teeth as his head throbbed in protest. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the din. "Giving that information to anyone out of mission scope is a careless risk, and Bors knows that. All of us should know that. Need I remind you that a traitor sat amongst us for nearly ten months, at least?"

"Nah, I remember," said Eggsy. He had of course been the last to see the man alive. "He only told me, though, and you know I ain't a traitor."

"That's irrelevant," Harry snapped. "You could be. Chester King was our bloody Arthur for more than twenty years. We should always operate under the assumption. Any of us could be compromised."

"Trust no one, got it," said Eggsy, rolling his eyes fondly as though Harry were amusing him. "C'mon, Harry, you're being a bit hard on old David, aren't you? He probably just thought you'd already talked about it with me."

"I'll have to speak with him about it." Harry frowned darkly. "If that's the case it's even more inappropriate."

"Yeah, 'cos we always been so worried about what's appropriate," Eggsy drawled.

Frustrated, Harry smacked his hand down on the countertop, startling Eggsy into finally looking up from his mobile. Harry felt a vague twinge of satisfaction. "For God's sake, Eggsy, this is not a game!"

Eggsy stared at him uncertainly. Harry's eyes kept catching on the gap in his left eyebrow. "I know it's not a game," Eggsy said. "I'm not makin' light of it, but he didn't even tell me nothing, and even if he had, it's _Bors._ We know we can trust him, and he knows he can trust me and all."

"You're missing the point," Harry told him. "Our job does not afford us careless mistakes. Every decision we make affects real lives. _People_ are at stake. Careless shit like this can cost innocent lives. I thought you understood that."

"I'm sorry, wait," said Eggsy, baffled. He pushed off the wall he'd been leaning against to stand up straight. "Is this — are we actually fighting about this?"

They were. Or Harry was, at least, and he didn't even know where the umph to argue had come from, let alone when he'd embraced it. He was overreacting and he knew it, which was foolish and unlike him. He took a slow breath, trying to calm the thundering of his heart.

"No, we're not. I apologise, it's been a long day," he finally said, turning to face Eggsy properly for the first time. It was only then that he only then noticed that Eggsy wasn't dressed down in his usual after work attire. He wore dark jeans and a pressed blue shirt, three buttons loose at the collar and the sleeves rolled to his elbows. He had chosen brown boots instead of trainers, and his hair was neatly combed.

"You look nice," Harry said.

Eggsy shrugged, too busy scrutinising Harry to acknowledge that it was a compliment. "Yeah," he said. "Thought if you made it home we could go out, maybe."

" _If_ ," Harry muttered sotto voce. _I'm so sorry, Harry. I'll do whatever—_ "I don't think I'm up for it tonight," he said. He wasn't up for much of anything. He had suffered horrific nightmares the last several nights in a strange bed and as a result had slept very little. As badly as he'd longed for Eggsy's presence in the last few days, he found himself exhausted by it now. "Don't let that dissuade you, though. Roxy and Sebastian returned from their assignment this evening as well. I'm sure you could persuade them to do something."

"Yeah, but I don't really wanna hang out with them tonight, do I?" Eggsy grinned cautiously, like he was trying to lighten the mood again. "C'mon, it's still early. You can lie down 'til your head's all right, maybe, and then we could go. Just to dinner?"

"I don't think so," Harry said. Eggsy was standing too close, smelling like Harry's soap, his hand on Harry's back. Not too long ago Eggsy had never been the one to initiate casual touch, well trained from childhood that it was safest to keep his hands to himself unless expressly invited. It was leaps and bounds that he was so comfortable in Harry's personal space now, and bloody awful of Harry to wish that just for tonight he wasn't. "Honestly, Eggsy, I don't think I'll be good company at all this evening. It may be a good idea to spend the night at your flat."

"Huh?" Eggsy tilted his head like a dog. "What are you on about?"

"I'm just going to go to bed," Harry explained. "You're welcome to stay, of course, but it's still early. Surely you and JB will enjoy the evening more in your own home, where you can invite your friends to join you. I don't want to dampen your spirits."

He hadn't meant to be patronising, but that was exactly how it sounded and it was too late to take it back. It would have been more polite to simply open the door and shove Eggsy out onto the street. Harry was working without his usual finesse for social conduct, and even so there wasn't exactly a kind way to tell someone to get out. Eggsy expression flickered from confusion to disbelief to surprise to embarrassment, and then went blank the way it had in the seconds before Harry had been punched in the face the night he'd returned from the dead. 

Harry felt the same achy thrill of anticipation he'd felt then.

"My own home," Eggsy mused, mouth curling into a sardonic grin. He had the same hypnotising panache when he was on the defensive as he did when he was trying to impress (and he was usually doing one, the other, or both). "Funny, 'cos I thought this was my own home," he said. Harry was far too tired for this. When he didn't say anything Eggsy narrowed his eyes. "What? You want to backtrack now? Or maybe just toss me out by the scruff of my neck?"

Harry heaved a deep sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose against the ache in his head, praying for patience. Taking a few deep breaths didn't help. When he opened his eyes again Eggsy was watching him with a dangerously pissed off expression. Wondering just how far he could get Eggsy's lip to curl, Harry gestured to the empty cabinet. "You could have at least restocked the tea. I'm ill prepared for a domestic without caffeine."

Eggsy sneered, caustic and so very pretty. "Yeah well, you have to leave a list of chores you want me to do while you're gone, otherwise they won't get done. You want a good boy who makes sure your pantry's stocked as well as sits on your cock you need to be more clear."

"Honestly," Harry said with a half-smile, "as though you didn't know how this would work the first time you crawled into my bed."

Eggsy didn't laugh, his fists clenched at his sides, eyebrows drawn together unhappily, mulish as he'd ever been. Harry let his gaze linger on the sweet moue of his mouth and felt his skin go hot.

He could all but taste the tension, the eager sharpness in the bitter words waiting on the tip of his tongue, and just the potential of the ugly vitriol he knew that Eggsy was capable of was sending blood to Harry's cheeks. They could tear each other apart without lifting a finger. Harry wet his dry lips. The bottom one was so chapped it had split in the middle and the loose skin against his tongue annoyed him almost as much as Eggsy's stony silence, which dragged on until finally Harry couldn't bear it anymore and broke it.

"It was a joke, Eggsy."

"Funny."

Harry said, "There's no need to be so dramatic. I'm not 'tossing you out.'" _He's in love with you. He's grieving._

"No, you just tried to put me away for the night like some fucking toy you was done with," Eggsy argued. He wasn't shouting, but he had to speak up to be heard over JB, who was barking again, and the television, and the incessant vibration of the mobile he'd shoved back into his pocket. Harry's head pounded harder from the clamor. He dug his fingernails into his palms. Anger had stayed so close these last few months — these last two years — simmering just under the surface, waiting to be tapped. Harry was aware of that, had been dealing with it both on his own and with professional help. He just hadn't realised how much of his ire was aimed at Eggsy, how furious he was with him on a fundamental level, until now. 

Harry wanted to close his eyes but he couldn't tear them off Eggsy, who was furious and hurt. It was easy to do, Harry mused, as his gaze caught on Eggsy's left eyebrow. It was so very easy to hurt him.

The thought triggered a wave of quiet horror, and all at once, the fight drained out of him. The anger began to dissipate in slow waves, hollowing Harry out until he felt sick inside and had to swallow back bile.

"Jesus, Harry," Eggsy said into the quiet, and it _was_ quiet again. JB had stopped barking, had left the living room; Harry could see him lying on the rug in the hall. The TV was still on but some other show must have started, because it was quieter. Harry could hear the second hand of his watch ticking. Eggsy said, "The hell is wrong with you?"

There were a number of possible answers to that question. Harry said, "How did you get that scar?"

Eggsy was so surprised that he let an actual expression show on his face again. "What?"

"Your eyebrow," said Harry, gesturing to his own. He'd noticed it the day that he'd had Eggsy released from jail. He'd wondered over it many times, made up his own stories for it, boring, mundane ways Eggsy might have acquired that scar: bumping his head as a child, falling down in the bathroom after a night out drinking, a fender bender when he'd been learning to drive. It had remained a matter of inconsequential interest, but the vague curiosity Harry usually felt had become suddenly unbearable, and he was desperate to know the truth.

Eggsy stared at him, bewildered. Harry knew that the question was a breach of decorum, at best. Even with Harry, Eggsy doled out stories of his past with careful calculation, generously enough to appease social niceties but always lighter anecdotes, or at the least ones that wouldn't make anyone uncomfortable to hear. This was one of many scars on his body that long preceded his time as a Kingsman agent. He'd told Harry about some of them, and the ones he hadn't were none of Harry's business. He shouldn't have asked. He should apologise. He almost apologised. "It looks old," he said instead.

Eggsy let a few beats pass, searching Harry's face for something he clearly didn't find before he answered. "A broken bottle, when I was fifteen."

It must have been a deep wound to leave the scar it had, where the hair would never grow back. _They always hit me in the mouth, you think there's somethin' to that, Harry?_ It would have bled terribly, as head wounds were prone to do. For a moment Harry's vision sliced Eggsy down the middle. On Eggsy's left side the scar started to bleed, and he was sweating through his track jacket under stifling heat and humidity, and Harry wasn't holding the bottle that Dean Baker had broken over Eggsy's face, but seconds ago he was holding the knife that now plunged into Eggsy's throat.

Harry flinched, gut clenching, skin tingling as the world righted itself, and Eggsy was whole and nicely dressed once more. _There's blood. You'll drown._

"Harry?" Eggsy said. It was Thursday night. There was something Harry was supposed to be doing, but he couldn't remember what. He looked away to turn off the kettle and realised he hadn't turned it on in the first place. Not that it mattered; he couldn't make tea anyway. All that he had really accomplished was spoiling Eggsy's good humour.

"I'm sorry," he said finally. Eggsy didn't reply. When Harry looked at him again he was standing with his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched inward, looking uncertain and small. Harry had made him feel small. He took a helpless step toward him. "Eggsy, I'm sorry."

After a few moments Eggsy said, "If you want some space you just have to tell me. Don't dress it up like you're trying to do me a favour."

Harry swallowed hard. "I don't," he said. "I don't want that at all."

"If you do, though," Eggsy pressed.

"I don't," Harry repeated, feeling wretched. "I never meant to — I didn't want to —" He had never had trouble finding words before. Beyond disgusted with himself he felt impossibly young and foolish. "I haven't slept more than a few hours in the last several days. I'm in a terrible mood and I've been looking for a fight all day. You had the misfortune of stumbling upon me the moment my guard was down. I have no excuse. I am truly sorry."

Eggsy was quiet, lips parted, eyes sharp and posture wary. Harry approached cautiously, and when Eggsy didn't protest Harry took his hand, threading their fingers together. Eggsy shifted his weight toward Harry without moving his feet, swayed just enough that Harry caught sight of the calendar pinned to the wall behind him. It was Thursday, the twenty-first. Eggsy's birthday.

"Shit," Harry said, heart plummeting. Frowning, Eggsy followed his line of sight over his shoulder, and then let out a little snort, some of the tension draining out of him as it hadn't with Harry's apology.

"Yeah, when you cock it up you do it right," he said. He didn't look as wounded. His small smile was sincere and he curled his free hand into the lapel of Harry's suit jacket. He let Harry pull him close.

They'd fought before. Two strong personalities that they were, they actually fought quite a bit. Their arguments usually culminated in fantastically rough sex on the nearest flat surface. Eggsy had been known to start them for that very reason.

This felt different, like something vital and fragile was going to break and there was nothing Harry could do but wait for it to happen. It felt like he was the one with the hammer that would shatter it. There were so many things Harry wanted to voice but didn't know how. He'd spent more than half his life learning how to speak without saying anything at all. The thread he was hanging by was beginning to unravel, but it was unforgivable that he was allowing Eggsy to be caught in the backlash. He slid his hand up Eggsy's back.

"I'm so sorry, doll," he murmured into Eggsy's ear. 

"S'fine," Eggsy said. He pulled back a bit and pressed the pad of his thumb briefly to the chapped skin of Harry's bottom lip. "Harry, hey. It's okay."

It wasn't. It wasn't even close, but they were good at pretending. 

They went to dinner, and then to bed.

In the dark the wet sound of kissing and hands on bare skin seemed to carry, sound as hot as the taste. Eggsy pushed Harry onto his back, snagged the lube from the bedside table and straddled Harry's hips. Harry held the cheeks of Eggsy's arse apart as he sank down onto Harry's slick cock. Harry was hyper focused on the pressure between his legs, Eggsy's arse splitting open on his prick, bearing down on him, unbearable tightness enveloping him. He was too thick to just stroke in, always had to earn it, Eggsy's thighs straining as he worked his arse loose enough to take every inch. When he was stuffed full and balanced on Harry's lap Harry put his palm to his flat belly, pressed down like he might be able to feel himself inside. Eggsy let out a hot, wounded sound and clutched Harry's biceps hard enough to bruise.

Eggsy rode him hard, panting and wordless as he bounced on Harry's cock, fingernails digging into Harry's arms. Harry could only see his outline, the places where he touched Harry and they became the same shifting shadow. He pulled his knees up to give Eggsy something to lean against, used the leverage to fuck up into him and wrench a cry from Eggsy's throat.

"Shit, shit," Eggsy panted, and with a hand under the back of Harry's neck he hauled Harry up to sitting, unfolded one of his legs and wrapped it hard around Harry's waist. Harry bit at his neck, his mouth, kissed the swollen plush of his lips. In this position it felt like Eggsy never pulled off, kept the whole of Harry blood heavy and throbbing in the center of him as he rutted his hips. Their chests were heaving together; Harry could feel the scrape of Eggsy's hard nipples over his skin. His toes curled into the sheets. He said, "Eggsy," and when Eggsy clenched down, "God, yes, just like that, sweetheart," and wrapped his hand around Eggsy's stiff cock.

Eggsy said, " _Oh_ —" and blew his load as soon as Harry touched him, fingernails biting into Harry's shoulders. He curled into his orgasm, head dropping between his shoulders as he caught up Harry's mouth. Harry took the mess of it in his palm and spread it down Eggsy's thigh and around to his hip, gasping wantonly against Eggsy's mouth at the clutch of Eggsy's arse fluttering around him. He dug his fingers in and dragged Eggsy down tight into the cradle of his pelvis, cock twitching as he started to come.

Harry stroked the curve of Eggsy's spine to the swell of his bum, traded sloppy kisses and held Eggsy still, fucking his load into Eggsy's arse with pointed rolls of his hips until he softened. Eggsy reluctantly pulled off with a dirty slick sound and fell onto his back. He said, "Harry," in a thick voice.

Harry rolled onto his side to face him. This close he could see Eggsy's features more clearly, his swollen parted mouth, the distinct line of his jaw, the sleepy flutter of his eyelids. A hungry tenderness swelled a lump in Harry's throat. Just a few hours ago he'd wanted Eggsy to be anywhere else, and now the thought of him going to sleep where Harry couldn't follow was too much to bear. He was too madly possessive of Eggsy's time. Eggsy hummed into the kiss Harry gave him, content as a spoilt cat, and when Harry carefully tucked two fingers back into his sloppy hole he opened his legs wider. It was something dirty and possessive that Harry indulged in often.

He gave Eggsy a few minutes to rest, waited until he was just on the cusp of sleep and then withdrew his fingers and lovingly turned him onto his belly. He massaged Eggsy's shoulders and stroked down his spine, gently coaxing, wild heat rising inside as Eggsy pushed his hips up and opened his legs. Harry slipped his hand between them and kissed the spot just behind his ear and said, "Can you get your knees underneath you?"

Eggsy looked over his shoulder, mouth going open and lax as Harry fondled his balls, thumbing pressure over his taint. "Yeah, fuck," Eggsy mumbled. He got to his knees and pushed his cheek into the pillow, arse in the air. Harry couldn't see it but he knew Eggsy would be blushing. Some of Harry's come had leaked out onto the insides of his thighs. Harry rubbed it in like lotion as he dipped his tongue into the dimples at the base of Eggsy's spine.

"There you are," he murmured. "My darling boy."

He loved how Eggsy responded to him, loved the way he'd go belly up and so sweet for him. Eggsy made a quiet, needy noise. "You gonna lick me out?"

"I was considering it," Harry said. Eggsy's wasn't in a position where he could get any sort of friction, so Harry cupped the swollen length of him in his hand and very lightly pinched the crown between his thumb and forefinger.

"Shouldn' tease," Eggsy slurred, tilting his hips to urge Harry's mouth closer to where he wanted it. "It's my birthday."

Nothing else made Eggsy lose it quite like having his arse eaten did. He buried his face in his pillow, panting and moaning, flushed hot and slutty for Harry's tongue on him. Harry pressed kiss after to kiss to his rim, tasting skin and spunk. He used his thumbs to hold him open and lapped out the come he'd filled him up with, added two fingers to stretch him wider so that Harry could spear his tongue in properly. 

Eggsy rocked against his face, desperate babbling pleas muffled by the pillow. Harry could feel him jerking himself quick and rough, could feel every shuddery dry sob that rocked him. He could make Eggsy cry like this, make him fly apart, wreck him, and he did so now, rubbed relentlessly at Eggsy's prostate and licked him out until his jaw ached and Eggsy was coming into his hand and onto the sheets.

Harry didn't stop, milked him until he was dry and trembling, and he plaintively asked Harry to stop. Harry soothed him, kissed his back and sides, stroked his belly and chest until Eggsy's heart wasn't hammering quite so hard, and then helped him onto his back again. Eggsy blinked up at him, legs open and hand between them to cup his soft, sore cock. He tilted his chin up for a kiss which Harry gave him, thumbing the tears off his cheeks. 

Harry stroked sweaty blond hair from his forehead, and swiped his thumb gently over the scar on Eggsy's eyebrow. Guiltily, he murmured, "I shouldn't have asked."

"Harry," Eggsy said, half exasperated, half fond. "You can ask me anything."

Humbled, Harry gathered him into his arms, wondering that anyone could ever be so fearless.

 

 

**MAY**

"I'm afraid that I am beginning to regret…" Harry searched fruitlessly for the right words; everything he wanted to describe seemed too big for them, "I fear that I'm beginning to regret being with him. Allowing this relationship to have happened."

Dr. Williams was a consummate professional. Her posture, expression, and voice remained unjudging and inscrutable. "Do you know why you're upset with him?" she asked.

"Yes," Harry said. When she looked expectant, he added, "I know that you think I've altered my own memories of the South Glade Mission Church—"

"I never said that, Harry," Dr. Williams chastised.

Harry inclined his head noncommittally. "I assure you that I am fully aware that he was not present. I've never been under the impression that he was."

Dr. Williams pursed her lips. "Does _he_ know that you are upset with him?"

"No."

"Will you tell me the reason?"

Harry's throat closed up around the answer. He said, "Sometimes I can't stop thinking about it and it's difficult to even be in the same room with him."

"Are you certain that it's anger?" said Dr. Williams.

Harry smiled humourlessly. "What else would it be?"

Dr. Williams was quiet for a long time, but the silence was thoughtful. Finally, she said, "Are you planning to watch the footage from the church tonight?"

It was Wednesday. Harry said, "Yes."

Their time was up. Harry stood and shook the doctor's hand before he left.

He had piles and piles of work to do, but it was after ten and when he got back to his office he stretched out on the sofa and fell asleep. He dreamt of James, who stood on the snowy summit of a mountain, and told Harry, "It was all so much more than I thought it would be." 

Harry said, "I know."

A hand shaking his shoulder woke him and he opened his eyes. Eggsy was crouched down next to the sofa in a charcoal grey checked suit and green tie. He tapped his fingers on Harry's chest. "I have to go, the plane's waiting. I just wanted to say bye."

It was after eleven. Harry had only been asleep for an hour, but Harry was glad Eggsy had come. They tried not to leave on assignments without saying goodbye. Harry cupped Eggsy's jaw in his hand, hooked his fingers carefully into the hinge until it flexed, propped himself up on one elbow and kissed Eggsy’s open mouth, feeling madly possessive of him, all of him. Eggsy was pink-cheeked and dazed when Harry pulled back. Harry spread his thumb over Eggsy's wet lips.

"Be careful," he said.

He expected Eggsy to laugh, because it was only a recon assignment — he would spend the next several evenings at parties in Abu Dhabi playing wealthy, vulnerable and naive as he gathered intel — but the joke didn't seem to faze him. He adjusted Harry's tie and touched a kiss to his temple before he stood. "You too."

"I'm not going anywhere," Harry reminded him.

Eggsy smiled, but it was strange, his lips thinned. 

"Yeah, you keep saying that," he said. His jaw clenched. Merlin had been trying to train him out of that habit. His jawline was too distinct. Any shift of it could be too easily read, "but it's not really what you want, is it?"

"What?" said Harry, nonplussed. He swung his legs off the sofa to sit properly. "What are you talking about?"

Eggsy looked very calm, very controlled, every bit the Kingsman. He gave Harry a considering look. "You never mentioned anything about all these regrets of yours."

Harry had no idea what he was talking about. Regrets?

"Have they been around from the start or is all this something new?" Eggsy was saying. He'd gone from solid and cagey to sardonic and brittle very fast. 

"You're going to have to explain," Harry said. "I think I've missed something."

Eggsy was quiet for a few moments, the attempt to reign himself in obvious and a battle he ultimately lost. "I didn't think you was that good an actor."

"Eggsy, for Christ's sake—"

"Am I your penance, Harry?" Eggsy spat. "You feel so shit about what happened with me dad and what you done in Kentucky that you can't tell me no, is that it? You've just been, what, lying back and thinking of England? Talking to me, fucking me, when you can't stand to be in the same fucking room as me?"

For once, all the right pieces clicking into place was worse than the disorientation.

Calmly, Harry checked his pockets, the buttons of his shirt, and underneath his collar before he remembered Eggsy straightening his tie just a moment ago, and doing the same this morning. Merlin's new mics required the same fingerprint to activate and deactivate them. Harry found it on the underside of his tie and peeled it off.

It was almost insubstantial, wiring so minute he had to put his glasses on to see between two hair-thin oval protective casings, adhesive on one side. If Harry hadn't known to look he wouldn't have found it, even if he'd been staring directly at it. He could hardly see it against his thumb. 

Eggsy had bugged him.

"How long?" Harry asked.

Eggsy did not bother to lie. "Since you put your fucking car into a pole."

Months. That had been _months_ ago. It was so appalling that Harry felt ill. He stood, drawing himself up to his full and considerable height. He searched for any glimpse of remorse on Eggsy's face and found none. "Does Merlin know this is missing?"

"I reckon he's about to find out, yeah?" Eggsy said.

Rage felt like too tame of a word for what boiled Harry's blood. It took all of his considerable willpower to keep his voice level. "I don't even have words for the number of lines you've crossed, professionally and personally."

"Oh fuck off, _Arthur_ ," Eggsy said, positively mutinous. "You can tumble right off your high horse. You did the same fucking thing to me the day we met. We're _spies_. We do it to people all the time."

"Not to each other," Harry snarled. "Not for _this_. Where did you even find the _gall_ , you insolent little brat? You've been a part of this organisation by the grace of Merlin's good will alone and you’re stealing equipment?" Eggsy would have been privy to every word Harry had said since then. Every meeting, every casual chat, every single one of the thirteen sessions Harry had had with Dr. Williams. Harry clenched his fists at his sides, nostrils flaring like an angry bull. "This is what you've been doing in your free time? Pouring over every conversation I've had in the last five weeks that wasn't with you?"

Eggsy huffed. "Please, I'm not so far up your posh arse as all that. I ain't _recorded_ nothing, and I don't care what you and Bernie talk about at the water cooler."

"No, of course not. You were only interested in the confidential conversations between me and my bloody _therapist!_ " Harry wasn't quite shouting, but his voice was certainly carrying further than usual. He gestured furiously to the microphone. "This is an immoral, _illegal_ , gross invasion of my privacy."

"I don't give a fuck about your fucking privacy, mate," Eggsy said, voice sharp as the knife holstered at his ankle. "You been walking around like you're half in a dream the last few months. You got no idea what you look like sometimes, Harry, like you're in so much pain and there ain't a mark on you. Some of the shit you say makes me wonder if you'd just walk into traffic given half a chance."

"That's not—"

"Shut up!" Eggsy hollered. "You crashed your car into a telephone pole 'cos you wigged out behind the wheel, and the _head_ of the Kingsman psych department thinks it's okay to sign off on you running a job like the one in Bangkok?"

Harry felt blood rush into his cheeks. "If you're implying that I'm unfit for fieldwork—"

"I'm not implying shit, I'm saying it outright! You got no business being out there with your head so unscrewed. Do you have any how fucking terrified I was that whole time you were gone?" Eggsy looked like it was taking monumental effort not to start a fist fight. Harry could sympathise. 

"Galahad—"

"That mission was rigged to blow anyway and then you took lead and there was fuck all I could do to get you out of it. You haven't even slept through a full night in over a year, and you sent yourself into a death trap, and you _knew it_ ," Eggsy hissed. "And then you fucking freaked out because it hadn't gone bad when you'd wanted it to!"

"My ops are not your bloody call, Eggsy!"

Eggsy shook his head, talking over him. "That night you got back, that part where you turned into a fucking twat? That was a panic attack. You had a fucking panic attack standing in the bloody kitchen and you didn't even..."

Every muscle in his body was drawn taut. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes shining. He looked so much like he had that night in the fitting room, the night of their first kiss, spitting venom and teary-eyed in the same suit and tie he wore now, pinned under Harry's hands until he calmed down. He swallowed hard.

"You won't talk to me about it and I couldn't even tell if you knew how far off the fucking rails you'd gone, so yeah, I took matters into my own hands, and I'd fucking well do it again if that's what it took to find out some clue to what had you so fucked up." He shook his head, a humourless smile curling his lips. "Trick is, I—" His voice broke. It took him a moment to steady it. "Trick is, I wasn't expecting it to be me."

Harry wanted him gone. He was too angry, betrayed, embarrassed, heartsick. He wanted Eggsy on the other side of the fucking world. He said, "The plane is waiting for you."

"Yeah," Eggsy said. "And you'll sort this mess out when I get back, right?"

Harry didn't flinch, and Eggsy closed the door on his way out with a quiet click.

 

 

Though Merlin owned several properties around the world under a variety of pseudonyms, for the sake of convenience and security he most often utilised his apartment at HQ, and excepting special occasions he functioned at his peak on roughly four of sleep each night. It was therefore not altogether strange to find him in his lab at one in the morning halfway through a workout, stripped but for a pair of gym shorts and doing pull ups on the bar bolted to the side wall, sheened in sweat and looking for all the world like the cover of a men's fitness magazine.

Harry was reminded inevitably of when they had been young men, back before he'd become Merlin and the amount of intelligence he was privy to had forced him to forfeit his civilian identity, and ladies and gentlemen alike had been falling all over themselves looking for a way into Mark McLendon's bed. Harry himself had been terribly envious, having leaned more toward pretty than handsome at the time. He hadn't filled out properly until well into his thirties, but Merlin had been big-shouldered, well-built and chiselled even at university. Of course, no one believe Harry when he told them how vain Merlin really was.

Harry waited for him to finish his set and down a bottle of water, then threw him the clean towel he'd left on the table, which he caught with a nod of thanks. "A bit late, Harry. What brings you here? Up for a spar?"

Harry shook his head. "Just came from one." 

Merlin frowned, curious, and Harry showed him the mic patch that he'd placed on a sticky note from his desk.

At this juncture only six of them had been made. Field testing wasn't due to begin for another two weeks, and Kay, as always, had first dibs. Merlin wouldn't have noticed that one was missing because he kept them, along with the rest of the Crystal Cave's prototypes, in a highly secured vault that only he and Harry had clearance to access.

"Ah, you've been testing it out?" Merlin asked, taking it from him. He shot Harry a stern look. "You're supposed to make a note in the log. I didn't know you'd taken one."

"I didn't," said Harry.

Merlin arched his eyebrow, confused, and Harry inclined his head but said nothing more. After a few moments, Merlin's eyes widened, and then narrowed. His expression became increasingly incensed as he cottoned on. "That little twat."

Despite the amount of time he had spent complaining about what a pain in the arse Eggsy was during his training, Merlin had been soft on him from the start. He'd indulged Eggsy's smart mouth and turned a blind eye to the fact that JB had slept on Eggsy's bunk rather than his crate, and he had ignored his occasional bad attitude unless it became disrespectful, when other trainees had been thrown out on their arse for far less. If anything, it had only got worse since Eggsy had become a knight. 

Harry would have bet that if Eggsy were to walk through the door now, however, that judging by the look on his face Merlin would have happily beaten him to a bloody pulp. He stood glaring at the sticky note in his hand for a long time. Harry settled himself in a half-perch on one of the few clear spots on his desk, resting his folded hands on his knee.

Accessing the vault in the lab without Harry or Merlin's biometric signature would have required bypassing an impeccably programmed security system that Merlin had built from the ground up. Few other people in the world came close to Merlin's skill. Eggsy being one of them wasn't entirely a surprise, considering he had two years ago hacked into Harry's tablet just in time to watch Harry slaughter forty-eight people, but it was a diligent reminder that Eggsy's competence was at times a frightening liability. Merlin must have been thinking the same thing, because eventually he said, "It is a very good thing that Galahad is on our side."

"Indeed," Harry said. He thought, in Ukrainian, _We are going into the church_ , and then, also in Ukrainian, _I will go into the church alone._

Merlin sighed and dropped into a seat in the rolling chair facing him, rubbing a hand over his head. He was properly pissed off, which Harry hadn't witnessed in far too long. "I'm going to go medieval on his chavvy upstart arse when he gets back. A public lashing, at the least. He'll be lucky if I don't have him drawn and quartered. How long has he had it?"

"Three months, at least," Harry said.

"Are you taking the fucking piss? That little..."

For someone who didn't approve of gratuitous swearing, Merlin had a thoroughly diverse collection in his vocabulary. Harry waited for him to finish. "Quite. Had I known, I would have made sure it was returned to you much sooner."

Merlin huffed. "What the hell was he using it for? He has hundreds of the standard issue."

"Ah, but one of those I would have discovered within a few minutes," Harry explained. "This one I peeled off the back of my tie only a couple of hours ago." Merlin looked sincerely stunned. Harry had graduated from angry, to angrier, to near homicidal, and was now hovering somewhere between livid, numb, and peckish. "He's been inviting himself along to my appointments with Dr. Williams."

Merlin leaned back in his chair, rubbing a hand over his head again. He had a strange expression on his face. If Harry didn't know better he'd say it was guilt, or perhaps resignation. After a long time he said, "I should have paid more attention. I apologise, Harry."

"What?" Harry asked. He had mostly come to Merlin in hopes of not sitting in his office alone and dwelling on the possibly irrevocable rift suddenly wedged between Eggsy and himself. He hadn't expected an apology. "What on earth for?"

Merlin heaved a sigh. "He's been making noise since your accident. Little things. Nothing to make me think he'd hack into my vault and put a bloody bug on you, of course," said Merlin, mouth pulling in distaste.

Harry let his gaze drift to the ceiling, a flush of humiliation heating his face and ears. "Have I been so obvious?"

"No. For those of us that know you well, it was easy to notice things once we had the context of your..."

"Mental break?" Harry asked wryly.

"Dissociative episode," Merlin said solicitously, patting Harry on the leg. Harry shot him a dark look and Merlin rolled his eyes. "Oh, come off it. We're not having secret pow wows behind your back. He wouldn't air your dirty laundry with anyone and neither would I."

If only that was all that Eggsy had been doing.

"I'm not worried about fucking gossip, Merlin. _This_ ," Harry gestured to the sticky note in Merlin's hand, "that he could even do this worries me. That he made the decision on his own, that he knew it was wrong and fucking did it anyway worries me. That he did it _well_ worries me even more."

"As his boss, all of that should worry you," Merlin agreed. "Personally, I imagine it's much worse."

"Christ. _Personally_ , I'm bloody horrified," Harry muttered, tetchy and tired. It took him a moment to gather his thoughts. "He violated my trust, and my privacy. He overheard things that are —" He paused. "That are very personal to me, that he has no right to, and that I would not have said had I known he could hear them. Even if he thought it was in my own best interest..."

He trailed off, out of words. He couldn't shake it off, the magnitude of what Eggsy had done, how long he had been listening in, the sick feeling from knowing all of the things Eggsy must have heard Harry say. Eggsy had pried him open and looked inside without his consent, and then he'd had the audacity to be upset by what he'd found.

"I don't think even he has deluded himself that he was acting in your best interest," Merlin said.

A tender ache throbbed in Harry's chest and he sighed. "No, neither do I."

He was not, after all, the only one emotionally compromised by Valentine's Day. All over the world, people far more innocent than Harry had been made murderers against their will. Merlin, clear-headed, had pressed the switch that had potentially killed thousands. Eggsy had killed for the first time, for the hundredth, had watched Harry die.

"I don't know that we can allow him to remain in Kingsman employ," Harry said. It would not even be a question had it been any other agent.

"It's certainly something we'll have to discuss." 

They were silent for a very long time, lost in thought. As an agent, Eggsy had shown a severe lack of judgment. As a person, he had made a choice that Harry didn't think he could move past. "I keep telling myself that he's a victim of seventeen odd years of abuse, with access to power and some measure of control for the first time in his life, and with a conditioned reaction to feeling helpless."

Merlin made a face. "That makes it understandable, perhaps, but not necessarily forgivable." He set the sticky note on his desk and looked at Harry. "I believe this is one of those times where you're going to have to decide what you can live with and what you can't live without."

"Thank you, Merlin," Harry intoned. "That's very helpful."

Merlin patted his knee again. "You're welcome. Now get out, I'm tired."

 

 

**JUNE**

On Sunday night, Harry returned home in the evening only to pick up JB, and then headed back to work for a debriefing with Geraint and Tristan that lasted until nearly one in the morning. Once it wrapped he retired to his quarters at HQ, sat down at his desk in the small office, and queued the footage from his time in South Glade Mission Church. He paid careful attention, though he had long since memorised every second. He listened to Merlin's attempts to get his attention, and Eggsy's broken, static scream as the microphone in the glasses had failed. The video ended. He started it again.

Halfway through his third viewing, as on screen he jammed his knife into the neck of some vile bigot whose name he had never learnt, he withdrew his pistol from his shoulder holster, attached the silencer, and put three bullets into the tablet screen.

After, he had a shower.

He washed his hair and then his body, and didn't notice that the water had run cold until his teeth began to chatter. He dried himself, and spent an inordinate amount of time looking in the mirror. He was not so old, still in his prime if nearing the end of it, three years from fifty. He had never had much bulk but he was broad-shouldered and quite tall, and followed a strict training regimen to stay fit. He hadn't yet begun to soften, though surely it was coming. He looked strong. He ran a hand down his chest, over the hard protrusion of his abs, across his thighs. He looked healthy. He looked remarkably healthy.

He pulled on a pair of stiff sleep trousers, cleaned his teeth and got into bed. JB followed him, stumbled over the duvet and then sat back on his hind legs to beg. Harry didn't know what he wanted, little paws waving demandingly in the air, and his mouth was open and his body jarring as he barked, but Harry couldn't hear him. He couldn't hear anything over the roar of blood in his ears. He stroked JB's belly until he put his front legs down, and then he stroked the side of his head and the spot on his back that made his leg kick wildly.

The memories like voices in his head were silent for the first time in months. There was nothing to focus on but the crushing weight on his chest. JB blurred, and Harry's throat went tight and began to ache, he tried to take a deep breath and exhaled a sob instead.

It had been a very long time since he'd last cried. Years. Decades. So long that he no longer had a frame reference for how uncomfortable it was. Every time he closed his eyes he felt the rage rise up and watched Eggsy die, and he couldn’t open them at all now. His head throbbed and his stomach ached almost as badly as his chest. He covered his mouth to muffle the noise but that just made it more difficult to breathe and left him sobbing into the back of his hand like a child.

He heard the door open and Eggsy say, "Harry?" and then, "Jesus." The bed shook as he climbed onto it, and he touched Harry's face and neck with cool hands, gently pried his hand from his mouth. Harry didn't resist when Eggsy stretched out next to him, clasped their hands on the bed between them and touched their knees and foreheads together.

He clenched his eyes shut and held onto Eggsy's hand as though a tight enough grip was the only thing standing between him and madness. and he didn't say anything else, and after a few minutes he tucked his chin over the top of Harry's head and let Harry cry quietly into his his collarbone, fingers stroking through Harry's damp hair.

It didn't last as long as it felt it had, but it left him exhausted. Harry slid his hand beneath Eggsy's t-shirt to rest on his chest, over his heart, and went to sleep.

 

 

In the morning, he woke up to the sound of the shower running and his eyes inconveniently crusty from crying. He felt wrung out, both better and worse. He was glad that Eggsy was back, and he hadn't expected to be. He washed his face and considered ordering breakfast to be brought up from the kitchen, a luxury he only ever indulged in when Eggsy spent the night in these quarters with him, but decided against it. He had little in the way of appetite.

A few minutes later, Eggsy slunk out of the bathroom in jeans and a t-shirt, socks already on his feet, hair styled and hat tilted with its usual precision. He'd laid out a jacket, too, draped over the chair by the door, underneath which one of his ubiquitous pairs of trainers were lined up. 

If that hadn't told him that Eggsy was fully expected to be kicked out in a hurry this morning, then the miserable expression on his face did the trick. Harry was still angry enough to let him stew in it. So much had changed in only a few days. 

He watched Eggsy fidget for a minute, watched his eyes dart to Harry's face and flicker to his hair, which had dried in the ringlet curls Harry had always found too precious and that Eggsy always liked, and then away and back again. He didn't speak. It was a brave attempt at playing a game that Harry was much, much better at, and Eggsy broke within a couple of minutes, clearing his throat.

"I'll go," he said.

Harry regarded him casually. "Will you?"

"If you want me to. Only," Eggsy paused, frowning hard. "Can you tell me what I did? I've been trying to figure it out, but I don't...It could be a million things that made you regret me, you know?"

In some ways, Eggsy had read like a textbook check list when Harry had first met him. An overqualified underachiever with authority issues, guilt issues, daddy issues, trust issues. Adrenaline addict with no outlet. Attention seeker with low self-esteem. Narcissistic tendencies, self-destructive tendencies, self-loathing tendencies. He had an IQ off the charts, an eidetic memory, precise and creative control over his physical body. 

He was gifted, had been exceptional at everything he'd ever tried, but natural talent with little opportunity to excel had only ever set him apart in the worst ways. He had a superiority complex and was ragingly insecure. Everyone he'd ever met had looked down on him, but he liked people as much as he resented them. He was starved for human connection and even more for approval, and if he couldn't have that then he would settle for nothing less than disdain. 

Not all of that was true anymore. He was thriving in Kingsman. He had found his niche, and was learning that he had people to count on and that people were counting on him. The bad habits he still had were no worse than any other knight's, but it was these moments, when the quiet and confused self-deprecation that Eggsy wasn't even aware of was evident, that made it very easy to look at him and think _different_. That made it very easy to favour him.

Harry liked him. From the beginning, from the second Eggsy had opened his mouth in the pub that day and told him off, Harry had just liked him.

"No," Harry said. "Just one."

"Can you tell me?" Eggsy repeated. He sucked his bottom lip between his teeth to gnaw on it anxiously, shoving his hands in his pockets, waiting. 

Harry stayed in his spot on the side of the bed, curling his toes into plush carpet. "It was something you said, in that first voicemail you left me, and that night in the fitting room. You were weeping. It's likely not something you remember."

Not for the first time, Harry had underestimated him. A look of dawning comprehension crossed Eggsy's face. "I said I should have been there."

Harry said, "Yes."

It was as simple as that. Not the root, not even a very large piece, but the catalyst that Harry had been unable to move past: his worst nightmare trembling off Eggsy's lips like a wish.

"Harry," Eggsy started, but Harry looked at him pointedly and he stopped. Harry was so far on the high ground in this situation that Eggsy had no choice but to shut his mouth and listen.

"You're suspended without pay for two weeks, and grounded to HQ and at Merlin's mercy for another four. For the next six months surveillance will be so far up your arse every minute of every day that it will be a community effort every time you take a shit," Harry told him. Eggsy closed his eyes reverently. He'd expected to lose his spot in the only place he'd ever belonged. Good. He would remember that feeling. "Am I understood, Galahad?"

Eggsy nodded. "Yes, Arthur."

"Good." Harry was about to tell him either that he could go or that they should talk, but Eggsy beat him to the punch.

"I knew what I was doing," he said unexpectedly, words rapid as though he were getting them out before he could think better of it, or perhaps just to make certain that they were heard. His gaze didn't waver. "When I was doing it. Before that. When I planned it. I knew I was taking your choices from you. Forcing your hand, same as Valentine did. It was hard, but not like it should've been. I knew you was gonna find out sometime but I didn't think I'd be sorry. I knew what I was doing when I did it." 

When Harry didn't reply, he rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "Just thought you should know, in case you was thinking of forgiving me."

"I appreciate your candor," Harry said, "but I honestly haven't even considered it."

Ever an expressive creature, Eggsy turned his head to hide the way his face fell, but Harry saw his mouth tighten, the rapid blinking of his eyes, the droop of his shoulders. After a few moments he nodded and went to pick up his jacket and shoes, cradling them to his chest.

"I _am_ sorry, Harry. I really— I'm so sorry." His voice was small and earnest like it had been just before Harry left for Kentucky.

Harry said, "I know."

Eggsy left, JB at his heels. Harry got dressed and went to work.

 

 

By unspoken and mutual agreement, Eggsy moved out.

Harry didn't ask him to, hadn't thought that far ahead, but when he got home on the second night of Eggsy's suspension to find him quietly packing his things into boxes, he didn't stop him. Harry couldn't help but notice how efficient he was, how quickly he managed to box up his life with Harry, as though he'd been expecting it to end. It took less than a week.

Friday morning, before he left for the shop, Harry helped Eggsy load the last of the boxes into his car. 

Every interaction they'd had the last few days had been alarmingly comfortable. Eggsy had been a perfect guest, charismatic and engaging, the guest room he'd been staying in always tidy. He'd done his best to not be underfoot and when they were inevitably together he'd made perfectly pleasant conversation of little substance. 

Now, for the first time, he looked uncomfortable. He had to work for his smile. He thanked Harry, and, for a moment, looked like he was going to say something else, but the words never came. He'd become a very good liar. Having been on the receiving end of his impersonal smiles and small talk as though he were no different than any other mark was making it easier for Harry to let him go, right up until Eggsy abandoned the awkward, one-armed hug he'd been attempting and dug the fingers of both hands into Harry's back, clinging. His breath hitched and Harry could feel him trembling, and nothing was easy at all. 

Grief filled Harry's lungs and metastasised like a cancer. He held Eggsy close, stroked his hair with light fingers while Eggsy snuffled quietly into his neck. After only a few seconds Eggsy eased back, eyes red, and rocked up onto his toes to kiss Harry's cheek and then, very softly, his mouth. His hand cradled the back of Harry's head for just a moment, and then he was out of Harry's arms, standing alone a meter and an entire world away.

Harry opened the driver's side door for him. Once Eggsy had sat down, JB rushed over from the passenger seat and heaved himself through the window to say goodbye. Harry caught him before he fell. Quietly, he said, "Take care of our boy, won't you?"

JB wheezed and licked his fingers. Harry gave him one last pat and handed him back to Eggsy, who tucked him under one arm. The word 'stay' was on the tip of Harry's tongue. Instead, he said, "If you need anything," and Eggsy nodded and said, "Yeah, you too." 

Neither of them could bear to say goodbye.

When Harry returned to his empty house that night, he found Eggsy's key on the kitchen counter on top of a note that said, _Thank you, for everything._ in Eggsy's cramped scrawl. He had a glass of brandy for tea, followed by an after dinner glass of brandy, and a bit more besides. He woke up Friday morning with a full body cramp from folding his legs in order to fit on the sofa, an awful taste in his mouth, and just in time to walk a dog who no longer lived there.

 

 

On Eggsy's first day back to work, Merlin gave him such a thorough arse-kicking in what he laughably called a "sparring match" that it was felt organisation-wide. After, he took him into the gym and made him run laps until he vomited. Twice. And then he made him clean it up. On the second day, he put Eggsy back in the same siren suit he'd worn during his recruitment and kept Eggsy well past midnight cleaning his lab, his office, the window that looked over the hangar, and all of the ground floor tile. 

When it came to either punishment or revenge, Merlin did not fuck around. For what Eggsy had done, it was both. Over the next four weeks Eggsy's endurance scores went through the roof and every inch of the first two floors of HQ had been cleaned, primed, and polished. When he wasn't training or on his hands and knees with a scrub bucket, Merlin allowed the other senior agents and the entire janitorial staff free reign over his time. They didn't know what Eggsy had done, but they took to aiding Merlin with great enthusiasm. At any given moment Eggsy could be found fetching coffee, laundering undergarments, making food runs, writing operation reports, polishing shoes, cleaning toilets, walking dogs, sorting bullets, detailing cars, or any number of menial tasks designed to infuriate him into lashing out.

On the last day of Eggsy's confinement to HQ, Harry walked into Merlin's office to find him sprawled out on the floor between two bookshelves, sound asleep with a dust rag clutched to his chest like a soft toy. Harry handed Merlin a cup of tea and a flash drive, and tilted his head in Eggsy's direction. "All forgiven?"

"Only because it turns out he took advantage of a problem caused by a software update rather than that he dismantled my entire system," Merlin answered. "He's very good, for the record. Good enough to be dangerous."

"But not as good as you are," Harry said.

"Not as good as I am," said Merlin, satisfied. He took a sip of tea, frowned, and added a dollop of whisky. His next sip seemed to be much more palatable. He looked past Harry to Eggsy. "He hasn't complained once. Still afraid he might be sacked, I'd imagine."

"Probably."

"I must admit I've been using that to my advantage."

"That was rather the point."

Merlin huffed. "I haven't been nearly as harsh with him as Roxy has. She's forbid him from speaking in her presence and from what I understand has been using him as a footstool on a regular basis." 

Relegated to furniture. It was a tactic Harry never would have thought up. "Inspired."

"Aye," Merlin said. He waved a hand in Eggsy's direction and said, unsolicited, "He's a good lad."

He'd said that before. At the time Harry had wanted to correct him — none of them could really claim to be good men — but he had begun to understand what Merlin meant. Most men strove for greatness, influence, power, the immortality of a legacy to leave behind. Eggsy strove for greatness, but to him that meant kindness, competence, empathy. More than anything, Eggsy wanted to be decent. There were few people in the world who could honestly say the same.

Harry missed him.

For the last few weeks, he hadn't been able to tell if time was moving backward or forward. His life had returned seamlessly to the way it had been during the first few months of his tenure as Arthur when Eggsy had been avoiding him. He was swamped with work, enjoying the challenge and both irritated and gratified by the responsibility on his shoulders. He spent his Friday evenings with Bernard, Sebastian, and Merlin at the pub. He had all of the walls in his house repainted and the bathrooms re-tiled.

He missed Eggsy every second of every day, an open wound that refused to heal.

 

 

**AUGUST**

An operation went fairly adequate.

The target was Vincent Anders, a diminutive nuclear physicist with a revenge fantasy and the funds to make it come true. A combination of bad intel, an understandable but dangerous mistranslation, and the unpredictability of a psychopath all culminated in a very near shitshow involving a heavily attended charity ball and three weapons of mass destruction. In mission control, three monitors showed three feeds of a fundraising banquet: Lancelot's, Galahad's, and the security camera Merlin had managed to hack into. Merlin was on his tenth or eleventh espresso in the last hour. Nina, Galahad's handler, hadn't blinked in at least twenty minutes, since she'd said in a hard voice, "Galahad, Lancelot, A-1 will detonate in eleven seconds."

On screen, Roxy and Eggsy, dressed for a formal gala, had looked at each other, had some sort of telepathic conversation with their eyebrows, and then as one drawn their weapons. Gunfire had chased the civilian guests out of the grand hall and range of the explosion, and the chaos had given Roxy and Eggsy enough cover to slip past security in the entrance hall and into the bowels of the hotel to diffuse the other two bombs set to detonate before they could even begin to deal with the missiles. 

Now, Harry, Merlin, and Nina watched the left screen as Roxy, in an evening gown and four inch stiletto heels, out-boxed a very well-trained man roughly four times her size. In between dodging his perfectly executed swipes, she was disabling three nuclear missiles via a massive control panel in the basement, one push of a button at a time as Merlin fed her the override codes. She looked mad and delighted, one eye swelling closed and her cheekbone broken from one of the solid hits that had landed. She had strategically been slamming feet and fists as often as possible to the well-muscled knee of her opponent, and as his leg finally buckled, she bore a bloody-toothed smile and landed a roundhouse kick that neatly stabbed the poison-coated heel of her shoe into the man's throat.

"Nicely done, Lancelot," Merlin said. "Now listen carefully and touch only what I say, one mistake will launch all three."

Harry and Nina turned their attention to the right screen, where Eggsy was on the balcony of a forty-second floor suite with Anders bound and sedated on the ground nearby as they awaited the extraction team. He was dueling with, of all things, a master swordsman and the head of Anders' security. 

"How are you with a blade, Galahad?" Nina had asked.

"Pointy end goes in bad guy?" Eggsy had replied.

Harry was quite sure that Eggsy had never so much as fenced, but he was significantly faster and, more effectively, an unrepentantly dirty fighter. He had resourcefully thrown a handful of still-burning embers from the fire pit into the man's eyes, withdrawn his knife from its ankle holster and promptly severed the tendons in the man's right shoulder. With his opponent half-blind and without the use of his dominant arm, they were much more evenly matched. At least until hostile backup arrived moments before the Kingsman extraction team and absconded with Anders and the rest of the data they had been after.

In the end, the immediate threat was neutralised and Lancelot and Eggsy returned to HQ half-successful and with non-life threatening injuries, which was more than they could have asked for after so many things had gone wrong. Roxy would be in the infirmary for a couple of days while her broken cheekbone and concussion were monitored. Harry spent ten delightful minutes with her, more talkative and certainly more personal than she had ever been due to potent pain medication, before leaving her to her rest (and dignity). His rounds then led him to Eggsy, who rumour had it had stormed off the jet in a foul mood and failed to show up for his scheduled debrief.

He was still on probation and Merlin's responsibility, so Harry dropped by Merlin's office first. Bernard was watching the CC feed from the gym on one of the smaller desk monitors. In the early evening it was crowded, but most everyone had stopped their own workout in favour of gathering around the edges of the training room in the northeast corner. It was unfurnished, and had smooth stone flooring with a drain in the corner, which made for easy clean-up. It was therefore the room best equipped for hand-to-hand training.

"They've been at it for an hour," Bernard told Harry.

"Mm," Harry said, and tapped the keyboard to switch to Merlin's feed instead.

Merlin must have been on the jogging track on the second floor, because he had a clear aerial view, and Harry saw why the crowd of junior agents had been drawn.

Gareth and Kay were Kingsman's top close combat experts, with two very different styles. Richard was nearly a head taller than Harry and built like a titan, broad-backed, long-limbed and incredibly strong. Sebastian was tall but leaner and so fast as to be nearly untouchable. Richard was showy and powerful. Sebastian, in direct contrast to his usual demeanor, approached a fight as one did a game of chess, cold, calculating, strategic, and efficient. Both had been classically trained. Both were exceptional.

Both were facing off against Eggsy, who at his mother's knee had learned to dance before he'd learned to walk, who had learned to brawl in order to survive, who fought because he wanted to hurt or he wanted to be hurt, who loved every moment of it. Untrained, he had been dangerous. As Galahad, he was lethal. Richard and Sebastian had skill that was awe-inspiring, but it was Eggsy's passionate, graceful violence that left Harry breathless.

The three of them had ridded themselves of their shirts and were soaked with sweat. More obviously, they had clearly left all decorum behind. Richard was limping. Sebastian's nose was bleeding. As Harry watched, Eggsy casually popped his shoulder back into alignment, bent backwards to avoid a powerful swing of Richard's arm and on his way back up caught Sebastian's ankle mid-kick and flung him onto the floor so hard that the sound echoed. Laughing and exhausted, Sebastian tapped out. 

Eggsy let Richard back him into a corner, took a sharp hit to the ribs and then used Richard's bent knee to climb him like a tree, propelling them off the wall. Richard grabbed Eggsy by the hips but Eggsy already had a leg bent around Richard's neck. He was cackling over Richard's loud swearing, and with a twist they both went down. Richard landed hard on his back and Eggsy dropped on top of him, knee at his throat.

Still swearing, Richard tapped out, and Eggsy let him go and then gave him a hand up. An inelegant fight, but one that he had won, and though he'd burned off most of the anger and was clearly exhausted, he still seemed restless. Richard and Sebastian were both grinning, either impressed or proud or both. As the crowd began to disperse, Harry watched through Merlin's vision as Sebastian ducked his head a bit to see Eggsy's face, as he squeezed the back of Eggsy's neck comfortingly and murmured something to him.

"What did he just say?" Bernard asked.

"'It wasn't your fault,'" Harry answered.

"Ah," said Bernard. After a moment, he said, "You seem angry."

"I am," Harry said. He was irritated by Eggsy's behaviour, throwing a tantrum because a mission hadn't gone as he'd wanted it to, and he was irritated by Sebastian's hand on the back of Eggsy's neck. He was irritated by Eggsy's sweaty face and that Eggsy was able to live with himself after what he'd done. Looking at Eggsy bruised and in need of comfort was pissing him off. Thinking about Eggsy was pissing him off. 

He jabbed the keyboard with unnecessary force to end the video feed, and glanced over at Bernard. He was sitting in Merlin's desk chair, glasses on, perusing the open mission file in his lap. When he felt Harry staring, he looked up. "What is it?"

"I'm angry," Harry said. It was a revelation, not an admission, and he was speaking more to himself than to Bernard. Something that had been hard and unyielding in him had suddenly given way. 

He was angry. He was livid. He'd spent so long fighting irrational anger for Eggsy that he had unwittingly fallen into the same cycle of repressing, ignoring, compartmentalising, but there was nothing irrational about the rage he felt now. He was fucking furious with Eggsy, and this time it was because Eggsy bloody well deserved it.

"Harry?" Bernard asked, a polite inquiry to Harry's questionable sanity.

"Yes," Harry said, and strode from the room.

It was nearly midnight, but Dr. Williams was still in her office when he knocked a few minutes later. She bid him entry and he stepped in. She blinked, clearly startled to see him outside of a mandatory appointment.

"Sara," he said. "I believe I'm ready to discuss Eggsy. Would you like to join me at the firing range?"

She hesitated only long enough to smile. "Why Harry, I believe you've had a breakthrough," she said, standing from her desk. "I would love to."

 

 

**SEPTEMBER**

One evening on his way home from the shop, Harry popped into Boots to pick up toothpaste and a bag of Doritos. 

As he turned onto the aisle with the crisps, a small, loud voice called his name, and he found himself picking up a three year old running at him full pelt instead. Startled, but not unpleasantly, Harry smiled at Daisy. 

"Well hello there, young lady," he said, settling her on his hip. Eggsy was probably nearby, no doubt seconds from a panic once he discovered his sister had wandered from his side.

"Harry," Daisy said happily. She touched his cheek, and then tugged at his overcoat and tucked her little hand into the inside pocket, because she'd once found sweets in the same spot in one of Eggsy's and would never forget. Empty-handed, she made a clicking sound with her tongue. 

"I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't have anything for you," Harry said. 

Daisy blew a raspberry, which was a very Eggsy response. Harry suppressed a smile so as not to encourage it. At the end of the aisle, he saw someone skid to a stop and then heave a sigh of a relief. He looked up, faltering only a moment when he saw that it was not Eggsy, but his mother. 

To Daisy, he said, "I believe you've given your mum quite a fright."

"We get medicines," Daisy said importantly. She looked over Harry's shoulder expectantly and said "My 'Gee?", which was what she called Eggsy.

"I'm afraid not," Harry told her.

Michelle approached somewhat reluctantly as Daisy blew another raspberry. She looked round at her mum and once she was close enough clambered from Harry's arms into hers. "No, love. Eggsy's busy, remember?" 

Eggsy had a self-imposed rule about letting Daisy see him when he had bruises on his face. Daisy blew another raspberry and distracted herself with Michelle's tidy braid. Michelle gave Harry a tight smile. "Mr. Hart."

"Ms. Unwin."

Harry was out of his element. In the time that he and Eggsy had been together he had only seen Michelle a handful of times, and never without Eggsy to act as a buffer. He searched his mind for something to say and came up blank. He knew that she had started as an adult student at university and was training to be a teacher, and that she was doing well in therapy after a year of insisting that she didn't need it, but bringing up the first would be enforced small talk and the second was too personal.

"Sorry about this one," Michelle said, hitching Daisy up a bit so the little girl giggled. "She's started climbing. I looked away for just a moment and she'd got herself out of the trolley."

"Not at all," Harry said. "She saw someone she recognised."

Michelle's mouth tightened a bit further, but she forced another smile. "We don't shop at this Boots. Only Eggsy usually picks up her prescription for me, and this one's near his job. She had a playdate near here this afternoon so I thought I'd pop in instead."

This was an unnecessary amount of information that Harry didn't know what to do with, so he went the simplest route. "Is she all right?"

"Oh, yeah," said Michelle. "We found out she's got diabetes a month back, so she's got to have insulin now. Eggsy didn't say?"

Her gaze was scrutinising. Harry smiled blandly. "No, he didn't. I'm afraid I haven't seen him very much."

It was clearly the confirmation she was looking for. She had recognised Harry upon meeting him again the year before, and knew that Eggsy worked with Harry, and so assumed a government or military job like Lee had had, but Eggsy obviously could not tell her specifics. Beyond confidentiality, Eggsy and his mother were close but still working through trust issues. Harry wasn't all that surprised she didn't know he and Harry were no longer seeing each other. She looked at him for a long time.

"I knew he'd moved back into his flat, but he never said why," she said. "Can't say I'm not relieved."

Harry almost laughed, only because it was a cruel thing to say and quite unlike her, and because she made a scrunched face that he had seen Eggsy make many times when his mouth had taken off without his brain's permission. "Indeed."

"I didn't mean it like that. I only meant…" Michelle paused to set a squirming Daisy down, deftly settling her with a picture book from her bag and a sugar free sweet that required unwrapping and would keep her busy for at least a few minutes. When she stood again, she crossed her arms. "Did something happen? Should I be worried about him?"

"I'm afraid you'll have to speak with him," Harry said. "I don't think there's call to be concerned, though. He's resilient."

Michelle clicked her tongue, a nervous tick. "You ended things, then?"

"Well, yes, I suppose," Harry said.

Michelle was quiet for a time. "I know I got no right. I kept him in harm's way the whole time he was growing up. That's on me."

She had been slowly picked apart by a man who had made manipulation look like love, who had twisted her words and her thoughts and preyed on every vulnerability, who had hurt her, consistently, and made her believe that it was what she deserved. Harry couldn't say that, it was not his line to cross.

Michelle went on, "You're his boss, and you knew his dad. I know about making bad decisions, and Eggsy said you had a rough time of it, for a bit, after all that V-Day mess. Not so strange to have some wild affair with someone like Eggsy after all that."

In a lifetime of bizarre situations this was one he had never thought he might experience. Twenty years ago he had told this woman that her husband had been killed, and now he stood in the middle of Boots being at once accused of and forgiven for the perceived midlife crisis that had led to him bedding her son. No Doritos were worth this.

"I don't blame you or anything, but it's better this way," said Michelle. "Eggsy's got his whole life to fall in love." The _with someone his own age_ was silent. "His heart's broken now but in the long run it's for the best, really. And you seem all right."

Her words gave Harry pause, though not for the reason she would probably have hoped. He agreed with her on several of the reasons she was opposed to him being in Eggsy's life, but he had acknowledged and disregarded them well before he'd taken Eggsy into his bed, and none of them had been the reason their relationship had ended. She was giving him too much credit. 

What woke the bee in his bonnet was the rest of it. He _would_ be all right without Eggsy, and Eggsy would be fine without him, as well. They would survive, function, thrive, grow — and as she'd said, in the long run they would probably do all of those things healthier apart.

In the long run.

Harry had spent so much time waiting to become more stable, to become less angry, to become a better person. He had become so caught up in the idea of _better._

It occurred to him now, in this appalling situation he'd stumbled into, that the long run for men like Harry and Eggsy had the potential to be very short, and that at the end of it he would regret every moment wasted on the honorable, unreachable goals of a foolish old man.

"I'm not judgin' you or anything," Michelle was saying judgmentally. "I'm sayin' I think you've done the right thing."

"Thank you, Ms. Unwin, I do appreciate it," Harry said, smiling distractedly. "Unfortunately, I must be off. It was a pleasure to see you."

Michelle nodded, confused. "Yeah, you as well."

He said goodbye to Daisy, paid for his toothpaste, and hailed a cab.

 

 

Harry had only been to Eggsy's flat a few times, but as he entered the building the concierge smiled in recognition, said, "Hello, Mr. Hart," and buzzed him through the glass doors to the lifts. Harry spent the few minutes' ride adjusting his tie and pointedly not practising what he would say, because he always worked best when thinking on his feet. When the doors opened with a quiet ding, he stepped out of the lift and into Eggsy's foyer.

Eggsy owned the top floor of a Canary Wharf high-rise, a four bedroom penthouse with solid walls that he didn't share with anyone else, modern furnishings and sleek appliances (all brand new and with capabilities far beyond the necessary). It had state of the art security, nearly priceless works of art on the walls, and a treasure trove of electronics, toys, and knick-knacks that he had likely grown out of but had purchased for the sake of posterity. 

Eggsy had been embarrassed by the amount of money he'd spent, so much so that he'd felt the need to confess numbers the first time Harry had come over, but this was a part of Eggsy that Harry - who decorated his home with pinned butterflies framed on the walls because as a child his father had entertained an entomology hobby in the same way - understood. If the house Eggsy had chosen compliments of Kingsman was everything he had ever wanted for his mother and sister while he was growing up, the flat he'd purchased eight months later was everything that he had wanted for himself. 

Harry took the few steps down the hall and into the living room, about to call out but distracted by the boxes littered about, and then by JB, who trotted around one of them and pawed at his knees until Harry crouched down to pat him. "Hello, Mr. Bauer," he said. "Is he in?"

JB wheezed and licked Harry's fingers, tail wagging. The corner of Harry's mouth pulled up. He had always liked dogs, and had quite missed JB in the last few months. After only a moment, he heard Eggsy speaking from down the hall, though he was too far to make out anything but the general cadence. He was presumably on the phone, judging by the lack of another voice. Harry shamelessly took the time to look through the closest of the boxes.

It was full of films, books, and, Harry counted, three of his own shirts. He curled his fingers into the collar of a white pinstriped one that he had been looking for only a few days ago. It had been tailored years ago when Harry had boasted quite a bit more bulk. It would have swallowed him now, as it did Eggsy, who had worn it and nothing else quite often. It was sexier every time Harry saw him in it. 

"Harry?" Eggsy asked a few minutes later, jerking Harry from his thoughts. He was frowning curiously, the bruise on his jaw from the operation in Sao Paulo still vivid, and dressed only in pyjama bottoms that fit far too well for Harry's taste. He tilted his head, chin jutting out a bit. "What are you doing?"

Harry looked down at his arms, buried to the elbows in the box, and then at Eggsy with an eyebrow lifted. "Is this is a trick question?"

Eggsy laughed, and it felt like such a waste of time for him to be in the same room and yet out of reach. "'m sorry, mate," he drawled. "D'you want me to leave so you can keep goin' through my things in peace, then?"

"Nonsense," Harry said. He pulled the shirt he held from the box. "At least half of these are my things."

Eggsy opened his mouth, closed it again, sucked his bottom lip between his teeth, only partially hiding his grin. He was staring at Harry as though he were a mirage, a man in a desert dying of thirst looking at an oasis that he knew was not real. Harry had known without doubt the depth of Eggsy's feelings for him, but it was heartening to be reminded, evident in a way that only desperation could make them. 

"Only the stuff you don't use no more," Eggsy said. "You don't know how hard it was to leave that jacuzzi bath."

"Ah, yes. I would likely have noticed the hole in my bathroom floor much more quickly than my second edition Proust."

"That and it wouldn't fit in my car."

Harry smiled, unbearably fond, and folded the shirt neatly before setting it back in its box. He gestured to the others, some stacked against the wall and others already open on the rug, where Eggsy had clearly been living out of them. 

"You haven't unpacked," he pointed out. For the first time, Eggsy dropped his eyes. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his pyjama bottoms. Harry pressed, "Not enough room for everything?"

It was teasing, but Eggsy's grin was weak. He shook his head. "Nah, just. I dunno. I keep waiting for it to feel like home," he said. Something caught in Harry's chest. Eggsy cleared his throat. "Did I take something you need?"

"No," Harry said. Looking at the number of boxes, he reconsidered. "Not that I know of, in any case. I was just dropping by for a chat."

"Oh, yeah?" Eggsy gave him a considering look. "After a run-in with my mum?" He held up his phone, apparently amused by the face Harry could feel himself making. "She just rang."

"Oh?" Harry asked, feigning disinterest.

"Yup," Eggsy popped the 'p'. "She says you look all right, so I can stop worrying about you. She thinks that'll help me start to heal up."

"Undoubtedly."

"She said you had a good chat and that maybe you ain't so bad after all," Eggsy went on. Harry did his best to look unaffected and Eggsy said, "Considering how much she hates you, I reckon it was a good chat that I need to know about."

"Nosy," Harry said, and then sighed. "But fair. Do you want it play-by-play?"

"Nah, just the gist'll do."

"The gist," Harry said. "The gist is that she understands making bad decisions and being blind to the consequences, that she understands that people can change for the better and she thinks I have and that even if it has temporarily broken your heart, it will be better for both of us. She's very pleased that I have come to my senses about dating someone so much younger than myself, whose father I once knew, and who I have authority over professionally."

Eggsy nodded. "Right, that's about what she said." He made a face. "Except she don't talk like that."

"She is very astute," Harry pointed out. "There was nothing that was said that I do not agree with on a moral level. Being with you is entirely selfish."

"Right," Eggsy repeated. "So why are you here, then?"

There was a coffee table, a sofa, and several boxes between them. Obstacles, but not insurmountable. Harry felt steadier than he had in ages. He said, "I've been continuing my therapy sessions with Dr. Williams, you may have heard."

Eggsy winced, but at the sight of Harry's faint smirk he flushed, instead, and looked at the floor. "No, haven't heard nothing lately."

Harry shrugged. "It has been quite helpful, therapy. I've begun to accept certain things, had a few breakthroughs. The conversation I had with your mother this evening provided another one. I believe I've learned something important about myself."

Eggsy gave him a considering look. "What's that?"

"That I am, first and foremost, a selfish man," Harry said. Eggsy looked up, hopeful and wary, roughened and sweet and in love. Harry stepped around the boxes, and past the coffee table and sofa, until Eggsy was within reach. Harry could smell his shampoo and hear every breath he took. When he touched Eggsy's cheek, Eggsy let out a small, hurt sound as his eyes slipped closed. He leaned into Harry's hand. Harry said, "Eggsy…"

He wouldn't ask Eggsy to swear that he would never do something like bug Harry without his knowledge again, because he knew that Eggsy would if he felt it was necessary. He wouldn't ask for Eggsy's trust, because he'd never completely had it in the first place and likely never would, and he wouldn't offer his own because it would be a lie. Eggsy had once told him that what he did trust was that people would do what they thought was right by themselves. 

Harry could embrace that. He cared far more about Eggsy doing right by himself than he did about anything that might be done against him in the name of it.

"Harry, you don't have to—" Eggsy was forcing the words out, even as his hands clutched at Harry's overcoat. 

Harry cupped his other cheek as well, held Eggsy's sweet face framed in his hands. "Men like us don't often have the luxury of time. All that I want of what years we have left is to spend them with you."

"Harry," Eggsy said, half a sob, his voice a croak. "God, you fuckin' — Should've known you'd have a great bloody epiphany just to be contrary. Should've sicced mum on you ages ago."

Harry grinned, gingerly thumbing over Eggsy's bruised skin. "I've been a nightmare without you."

"I'm _sorry_ ," Eggsy groaned, rocking up onto his toes to kiss Harry hard, clumsy and desperate and relieved, teeth and tongue and urgency. It broke with a soft moan from Harry and a tortured breath from Eggsy, who was pressing himself as close to Harry as he possibly could. "God, Harry, I wasn't - I didn't know what to - I'm so fucking sorry."

"Oh, my darling boy," Harry murmured, and revelled in the way Eggsy's eyelids fluttered, the way he went soft and yielding under Harry's hands. Harry slid his fingers through Eggsy's hair, heart pounding, aching and tender like a wound. "I would forgive you anything."

It was a dangerous confession, one that could be taken advantage of. It was possible that Eggsy would, someday, but he was worth the risk. 

Eggsy said, "You idiot," and kissed him again, and when their lips broke apart this time Harry found Eggsy's hand with his own and brought it to his lips to kiss the fingertips. 

"Would you join me for dinner?" Harry asked.

"Yeah," Eggsy said, wet-eyed and grinning. "All right."

Harry liked his dimples. He touched the one on the left. He felt mad. He felt good. Of all the bad decisions he'd made in his life, this was most certainly the best of them.

 

 

 

**Epilogue**

Dr. Williams washed her hands of Harry in November. In December, Guinevere returned to America. On her last night, Harry and Eggsy treated her to dinner and then escorted her to the airfield where a jet was waiting to take her back home. Outside the town car, she kissed Harry's cheek, swatted his arse, and said a polite goodbye to Eggsy. When she started toward the jet, her husband Ivan descended the stairs to meet her.

"I don't like her," Eggsy said.

"No?" Harry asked, surprised. 

"Yeah, she's way off, mate. Rox said she fell in love once and MI6 didn't like it so she shot the guy like eight times in the face." After a moment, he amended, "Maybe it was three times in the chest. Whatever."

"Something like that," Harry said.

Eggsy blew a raspberry. As they watched, Victoria was swept into a passionate embrace and kissed sweetly on the lips. Her expression was one of utter contentness; she was wholly in love. Harry slid a hand beneath Eggsy's suit jacket to rest on the small of his back and Eggsy stepped subtly closer. He jerked a chin in the direction of Victoria and Ivan. "Who's that then, the husband? Poor sod."

"Yes," Harry said, suppressing a smirk. "She once shot him, you know. Three times, in the chest. Very carefully, of course. It saved his life. Exceptionally romantic, really."

Eggsy was silent for a very long time before he said, "You're all sick fucking freaks, you know that, don't you?"

"Not sick," Harry said, turning to face Eggsy properly. Eggsy arched an eyebrow and Harry cupped his jaw. "Just in love."

"Fuck off," Eggsy told him. He caught the lapels of Harry's suit jacket to keep him close. Harry pressed him into the side of the car and kissed him, lush, unhurried. They didn't surface until the jet had taken off. Eggsy grinned fiercely. "You want me."

"I have you," Harry pointed out.

Eggsy said, softer, "You'll keep me."

Harry rubbed his thumb over the bulge of his old signet ring through the chest of Eggsy's shirt. "For as long as I can."

Eggsy's fingers carded into his hair, drew him down until their foreheads touched. "You ain't gonna shoot me three times in the chest, though, right?"

"Only if I have to," Harry promised, and let the sound of Eggsy's unfettered laughter sink into his bones.

 

 

**the end**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And, curtain.
> 
> I am over on tumblr at this name. Feel free to come shout at me about all things Kingsman. :)
> 
>  
> 
> Disclaimer: As mentioned, Victoria is a character from the movie RED. Ivan and the "shot him three times in the chest" is a shout out to RED also, where that is their actual backstory. I can take no credit for that bit at all.


End file.
